Ineffectually, at least here in this square of the garden; for that cross of wide, empty aqueducts divided it into squares.
And this one was a square of roses--roses everywhere, even in the lower level of what in the old kingly days had been a marble-edged water-way, which now, half filled with soil, held more roses.
But they were all of one kind--the pink Persian rose, whose outer petals pale in the sunlight, whose rose of roses heart is full of an almost piercing perfume.
What wonder, when it is the otto of roses rose! It grew here for that set purpose in orderly lines, its grey green, velvety leaves almost hidden by its profusion of flowers.
And the scent of them filled the whole square of garden, where the air, still warm from the past noon, lay prisoned in that fringe of blossoming trees.
It seemed to fill the brain, also, with the quintessence of gladness, beauty, life, and love.
So His arm sought Her waist and their eyes met.
But only for a second; the next, Her blush matching Her flounces, She had drawn back, and He with an angry frown was glaring in the direction of the voice which had interrupted them.
It was a high, clear voice full of little trills and bubblings like a bird's, and it sang on incessantly, as if to give those two time to recover from their confusion. And as it sang, the Persian vowels seemed as piercingly sweet as the perfume into which they echoed.
"The rose-root takes earth's kisses for its meat, The rose-leaf makes its blush from the sun's heat, The rose-scent wakes-who knows from what thing sweet? Who knows The secret of the perfume of the rose?"
As the song ended, a head showed above the tufted bushes. It was rather a fine head; bare of covering, its long grizzled hair parted in the middle lying in a smooth outward curve on the high narrow forehead, then sweeping in an equal inside curve between the ear and throat. So much, no more, was to be seen above the roses, save, for a moment, a long-fingered, delicate brown hand hiding the face in its _salaam_.
"Who the _shaitan_ are you?" asked the young man fiercely in Hindustani.
The head and hand met in a second _salaam_, then the face showed; rather a fine face, preternaturally grave, but with a cunning comprehension in its gravity.