[Veranilda by George Gissing]@TWC D-Link book
Veranilda

CHAPTER XII
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She was young and beautiful, with dark, oriental features, and a bearing which aimed at supremity of arrogance.

Having stepped down, she stood at the edge of the portico, languidly gazing this way and that, with the plain intention of exhibiting herself to the loiterers whom her appearance drew together; at every slightest movement, the clink of metal sounded from her neck, her arms, her ankles; stones glistened on her brow and on her hands; about her she shed a perfume like that wafted from the Arabian shore.
The Greek merchant, as soon as he was aware of her arrival, ran forward and stood obsequiously before her, until she deigned to notice him.
'I would speak with you.

See that we are private.' 'Noble lady,' he replied, 'the lord Basilius, heir of the Senator Maximus, is within.

I will straightway beg him to defer his business.' The lady turned and gazed into the dusky shop.
'He is not alone, I see.' 'A kinsman is with him, noble lady.' 'Then bid the kinsman go his way, and keep apart, you, until you are summoned.

I will speak for a moment with the lord Basilius.' The Alexandrian, masking a smile, drew near to Basil, and whispered that the lady Heliodora demanded to see him alone.


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