With a motherly
gesture, she took Elma's hand; she smoothed her dark hair; she bent
down with a tender look, in those strange grey eyes, and printed
a kiss unexpectedly on the poor girl's forehead.
"Elma," she said, leaning over her, "do you know what that was?
That was the Naga Snake Dance. It gave you an almost irresistible
longing to rise, and hold the snake in your own hands, and coil
his great folds around you. I could see how you felt. But you were
strong enough to resist. That was very well done. You resisted
even the force of my music, didn't you?"
Elma, trembling all over, but bursting with joy that she could speak
of it at last without restraint to somebody, answered, in a very
low and tremulous voice, "Yes, Miss Ewes, I resisted it."
Miss Ewes leant back in her place, and gazed at her long, with a
very affectionate and motherly air. "Then I'm sure I don't know,"
she said at last, breaking out in a voice full of confidence, "why
on earth you shouldn't marry this young man you're in love with!"
Elma's heart beat still harder and higher than ever.
"What young man?" she murmured low--just to test the enchantress.
And Miss Ewes made answer, without one moment's hesitation, "Why,
of course, Cyril Waring!"
For a minute or two then, there was a dead silence.
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