But in
surroundings how amazingly different!--A place of fountains, cypresses
and palms, she curled up in a black marble chair, set throne fashion,
upon a platform of blood red sandstone, an age-old Oriental garden
outstretched below. Colonel Carteret--"the man with the blue eyes" as she
always had called him--awakened her, bringing an adorable and, as it
proved in the sequel, a tragic birthday gift.--Tragic because to it
might, actually if indirectly, be traced the breaking up of her
childhood's home in the stately Indian pleasure palace of the
Sultan-i-bagh at Bhutpur, her separation from her father and exile--as
she had counted it--to Europe.
It is among the doubtful privileges of highly sensitized natures, such as
Damaris', that, in hours of crisis, vision and pre-vision go hand in
hand. As there flashed through her remembrance of that earlier sleep in
the open, there flashed through her also conviction that history would
still further repeat itself. Now, as then, the incident of sleep preluded
the receipt of a gift, adorable perhaps, yet freighted with far-reaching
consequences to herself and her future.
Pages:
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207