You two in this room, eh? Next door
each other for company."
She withdrew, leaving the two girls together. Mollie clasped her hands
ecstatically.
"Oh, my dear!" she said. "What do you think of it all?"
"Well," confessed Rita, looking about her, "personally I feel rather
nervous."
"My dear!" cried Mollie. "I am simply quivering with delicious
terror!"
Rita became silent again, looking about her, and listening. The harsh
voice of the Cuban-Jewess could be heard from a neighboring room, but
otherwise a perfect stillness reigned in the house of Sin Sin Wa. She
remembered that Mrs. Sin had said, "It is quiet--so quiet."
"The idea of undressing and reclining on these divans in real oriental
fashion," declared Mollie, giggling, "makes me feel that I am an
odalisque already. I have dreamed that I was an odalisque, dear--after
smoking, you know. It was heavenly. At least, I don't know that
'heavenly' is quite the right word."
And now that evil spirit of abandonment came to Rita--communicated to
her, possibly, by her companion. Dread, together with a certain sense
of moral reluctance, departed, and she began to enjoy the adventure at
last. It was as though something in the faintly perfumed atmosphere of
the place had entered into her blood, driving out reserve and stifling
conscience.
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