And all the while that we talked, or rather tried to talk, and
laughed, Sorais would sit there in her carven ivory chair, and
look at us and read us all like a book, only from time to time
saying a few words, and smiling that quick ominous smile of hers
which was more like a flash of summer lightning on a dark cloud
than anything else. And as near to her as he dared would sit
Good, worshipping through his eyeglass, for he really was getting
seriously devoted to this sombre beauty, of whom, speaking personally,
I felt terribly afraid. I watched her keenly, and soon I found
out that for all her apparent impassibility she was at heart
bitterly jealous of Nyleptha. Another thing I found out, and
the discovery filled me with dismay, and that was, that she _also_
was growing devoted to Sir Henry Curtis. Of course I could not
be sure; it is not easy to read so cold and haughty a woman;
but I noticed one or two little things, and, as elephant hunters
know, dried grass shows which way the wind has set.
And so another three months passed over us, by which time we
had all attained to a very considerable mastery of the Zu-Vendi
language, which is an easy one to learn. And as the time went
on we became great favourites with the people, and even with
the courtiers, gaining an enormous reputation for cleverness,
because, as I think I have said, Sir Henry was able to show them
how to make glass, which was a national want, and also, by the
help of a twenty-year almanac that we had with us, to predict
various heavenly combinations which were quite unsuspected by
the native astronomers.
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