But this attitude on his part failed to cloud Pearl's spirits. She had
seen men taken with this not inexplicable shyness before, and she made
no effort to rouse Harry from his abstraction or to lure him from his
meditations; femininely, intuitively wise, she left that to time.
But even in her moods of gayety the Black Pearl was never voluble, and
her habit of silence was a factor in maintaining the mystery with which
Seagreave's imagination was now beginning to invest her, and during
those winter evenings when she would often sit absolutely motionless for
an hour at a time, her narrow eyes dreaming on the fire, the sphynx look
on her face, more than once he felt impelled to murmur:
"'The Sphinx is drowsy,
Her wings are furled:
Her ear is heavy,
She broods on the world.
Who'll tell me my secret,
The ages have kept?--
I awaited the seer,
While they slumbered and slept.'"
Thus, more and more, he saw her as the image of beauty and of mystery,
and ever more frequently he pondered on the nature of the message of the
desert. But had he come down to Gallito's cabin earlier in the evening
he would not have found her brooding on the firelight. Usually, she
danced, keeping well in practice. She and Hughie would discuss by the
hour new movements and effects, and not only discuss, but try them, and
she and Jose, who had a light foot, often gave Gallito the benefit of
seeing them in many of the old Spanish dances.
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