They light cigarettes. A fresh breeze is blowing from the city. It is following them with the perfume of its gardens. The falling leaves are whispering in the grove to the swaying boughs. The narcissus is nodding to the myrtle across the way. And the bulbuls are pouring their golden splendour of song. Khalid speaks.
“Beauty either detains, repels, or enchants. The first is purely external, linear; the second is an imitation of the first, its artistic artificial ideal, so to speak; and the third”—He is silent. His eyes, gazing into hers, take up the cue.
Mrs. Gotfry turns from him exhausted. She looks into the water.
“See the rose-beds in the stream; see the lovely pebbles dancing around them.”
“I can see everything in your eyes, which are like limpid lakes shaded with weeping-willows. I can even hear bulbuls singing in your brows.—Turn not from me your eyes. They reflect the pearls of your soul and the flowers of your body, even as those crystal waters reflect the pebbles and rose-beds beneath.”
“Did you not say that love is the splendour of God?”
“Yes.”
“Then, why look for it in my eyes?”
“And why look for it in the heart of the heavens, in the depths of the sea—in the infinities of everything that is beautiful and terrible—in the breath of that little flower, in the song of the bulbul, in the whispers of your silken lashes, in—”
“Shut your eyes, Khalid; be more spiritual.”