For all she had done that day to please and to
deceive him had now been undone, and everything that had been possible
had been done to enhance her loveliness. She had arrayed herself in a
violet-coloured silk gown with a network of gold thread over the body
and wide sleeves to the elbows, and rope of gold round her waist with
its long ends falling to her knee. The great mass of her coiled hair was
surmounted with a golden comb, and golden pendants dropped from her ears
to her shoulders. Also she wore gold armlets coiled serpent-wise round
her white arms from elbow to wrist. Not a gem--nothing but pale yellow
gold.
Edgar himself was amazed at her loveliness, for never had he seen
anything comparable to it; and when he gazed into her eyes she did not
lower hers, but returned gaze for gaze, and there was that in her eyes
and their strange eloquence which kindled a sudden flame of passion in
his heart, and for a moment it appeared in his countenance. Then,
quickly recovering himself, he greeted her graciously but with his usual
kingly dignity of manner, and for the rest of the time he conversed with
her and Athelwold in such a pleasant and friendly way that his host
began to recover somewhat from his apprehensions.
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