She presently joined me, but even then stretched her
hand out to feel the drops.
Now there came a thunder-clap, the wind was rising, and rain spattering
about me: for the panes of these houses, made, I believe, of paper
saturated in almond-oil, have long disappeared, and rains, penetrating
by roof and rare window, splash the bones of men. I gathered up my
skirts to run toward other shelter, but she was before me, saying in her
strange experimental voice that word of hers: "_Come_."
She ran in advance, and I, with the outer robe over my head, followed,
urging flinching way against the whipped rain-wash. She took the way by
the stone horse-pond, through an alley to the left between two blind
walls, then down a steep path through wood to the rock-steps, and up we
ran, and along the hill, to her yali, which is a mile nearer the village
than the palace, though by the time we pelted into its dry shelter we
were wet to the skin.
Sudden darkness had come, but she quickly found some matches, lit one,
looking at it with a certain meditative air, and applied it to a candle
and to a bronze Western lamp on the table, which I had taught her to oil
and light.
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