The note of a silver bell quivered musically through the scented air of
the ante-room. Madame de Medici stirred slightly upon the divan with its
many silken cushions, turning her head toward the closed door with the
languorous, almost insolent, indifference which one perceives in the
movements of a tigress. Below, in the lobby, where the pillars of
Mokattam alabaster upheld the painted roof, the little yellow man from
Pekin shivered slightly, although the air was warm for Limehouse, and
always turned his mysterious eyes toward a corner of the great staircase
which was visible from where he sat, coiled up, a lonely figure in the
mushrabiyeh chair. Madame blew a wreath of smoke from her lips, and,
through half-closed eyes, watched it ascend, unbroken, toward the canopy
of cloth-of-gold which masked the ceiling. A Madonna by Leonardo da
Vinci faced her across the apartment, the painted figure seeming to
watch the living one upon the divan. Madame smiled into the eyes of the
Madonna. Surely even the great Leonardo must have failed to reproduce
that smile--the great Leonardo whose supreme art has captured the smile
of Mona Lisa. Madame had the smile of Cleopatra, which, it is said, made
Caesar mad, though in repose the beauty of Egypt's queen left him
cold. A robe of Kashmiri silk, fine with a phantom fineness, draped her
exquisite shape as the art of Cellini draped the classic figures which
he wrought in gold and silver; it seemed incorporate with her beauty.
A second wreath of smoke curled upward to the canopy, and Madame watched
this one also through the veil of her curved black lashes, as the
Eastern woman watches the world through her veil. Those eyes were
notable even in so lovely a setting, for they were of a hue rarely seen
in human eyes, being like the eyes of a tigress; yet they could seem
voluptuously soft, twin pools of liquid amber, in whose depths a man
might lose his soul.
Again the silver bell sounded in the ante-room, and, below, the little
yellow man shivered sympathetically. Again Madame stirred with that high
disdain that so became her, who had the eyes of a tigress. Her carmine
lips possessed the antique curve which we are told distinguished the
lips of the Comtesse de Cagliostro; her cheeks had the freshness of
flowers, and her hair the blackness of ebony, enhancing the miracle of
her skin, which had the whiteness of ivory--not of African ivory, but
of that fossil ivory which has lain for untold ages beneath the snows of
Siberia.
She dropped the cigarette from her tapered fingers into a little silver
bowl upon a table at her side, then lightly touched the bell which
stood there also. Its soft note answered to the bell in the ante-room; a
white-robed Chinese servant silently descended the great staircase,
his soft red slippers sinking into the rich pile of the carpet; and the
little yellow man from the great temple in Pekin followed him back up
the stairway and was ushered into the presence of Madame de Medici.
The servant closed the door silently and the little yellow man, fixing
his eyes upon the beautiful woman before him, fell upon his knees and
bowed his forehead to the carpet.
Madame's lovely lips curved again in the disdainful smile, and she
extended one bare ivory arm toward the visitor who knelt as a suppliant
at her feet.
“Rise, my friend!” she said, in purest Chinese, which fell from her lips
with the music of a crystal spring. “How may I serve you?”
The yellow man rose and advanced a step nearer to the divan, but the
strange beauty of Madame had spoken straight to his Eastern heart, had
awakened his soul to a new life. His glance travelled over the vision
before him, from the little Persian slipper that peeped below the
drapery of Kashmir silk to the small classic head with its crown of ebon
locks; yet he dared not meet the glance of the amber eyes.
“Sit here beside me,” directed Madame, and she slightly changed her
position with that languorous and lithe grace suggestive of a creature
of the jungle.
Breathing rapidly betwixt the importance of his mission and a new,
intoxicating emotion which had come upon him at the moment of entering
the perfumed room, the yellow man obeyed, but always with glance averted
from the taunting face of Madame. A golden incense-burner stood upon the
floor, over between the high, draped windows, and a faint pencil from
its dying fires stole grayly upward. Upon the scented smoke the Buddhist
priest fixed his eyes, and began, with a rapidity that grew as he
proceeded, to pour out his tale. Seated beside him, one round arm
resting upon the cushions so as almost to touch him, Madame listened,
watching the averted yellow face, and always smiling--smiling.
The tale was done at last; the incense-burner was cold, and breathlessly
the Buddhist clutched his knees with lean, clawish fingers and swayed to
and fro, striving to conquer the emotions that whirled and fought within
him. Selecting another cigarette from the box beside her, and lighting
it deliberately, Madame de Medici spoke.
“My friend of old,” she said, and of the language of China she made
strange music, “you come to me from your home in the secret city,
because you know that I can serve you. It is enough.”
She touched the bell upon the table, and the white-robed servant
reentered, and, bowing low, held open the door. The little yellow man,
first kneeling upon the carpet before the divan as before an altar,
hurried from the apartment. As the door was reclosed, and Madame found
herself alone again, she laughed lightly, as Calypso laughed when
Ulysses' ship appeared off the shores of her isle.
God fashions few such women. It is well.