Then she went to an ivory cupboard of the Orient (or, as they are called in Holy Writ, "an ivory palace"), and opening the beautifully fitting door, she took from it a small square bottle of red glass which she held between her and the light.
"It is well," she said, looking long and carefully at it; "it will flow." And coming to the table and pouring some of a shining black liquid into the palm of her left hand, she sat down beside me on the stool and gazed steadily into the little pool of ink.
It was strange to me to sit thus motionless beside a beautiful woman (for such I then thought her)--so near that I could feel the warmth of her body strike like sunshine through the silken fineness of her sea-green gown.

I glanced up at her eyes.

They were fixed, and, as it seemed, glazed also.

But the emerald in them, usually dark as the sea-depths, had opal lights in it, and her lips moved like those of a devotee kneeling in church.
Presently she began to speak.
"Hugo--Hugo Gottfried, son of the Red Axe," she said, in the same hushed voice as before, most like running water heard murmuring in a deep runnel underground, "you will live to be a man fortunate, well-beloved.

You will know love--yes, more than one shall love you.