We hurried upstairs and changed into evening-dress. I tapped at her door, asking, “Are you ready?”
“All except some hooks and eyes. Come in,” she replied.
She was seated before the looking-glass, with her arms curved upward, tucking a bow of black ribbon in her hair. It was her reflection that looked into my face and smiled.
“You do me proud, Fiesole,” I said, remembering one of Vi’s phrases.
She looked as simple as a sixteen year old girl. Her dress was of pale green satin, cut high in the waist in Empire fashion, hanging without fullness to just above her ankles. The sleeves left off at the elbows. Her wonderful russet hair was gathered into a loose knot and lay coiled along her neck. She was the Fiesole of my school-days. Had she intended to remind me?
I sat down on the edge of the bed while she finished her dressing, following with my eyes the feminine nick-nacks which were strewn about. But always my eyes came back to her, with the mellow glory from the window transfiguring her face and neck. There was a nipping sweetness in being so near to a woman whom I could not hope to possess. I knew that without marrying her I could not keep her. Platonic friendships are only safe between men and women whose youth is withered. I was wise enough to know that. We were chance-met travelers in Lovers’ Land—truants who would soon be dragged back. I kept saying to myself, “Intimacy such as we have can go but a short way further; any hour all this may end.”
Then I tried to imagine how this evening would seem to me years hence. The poignancy of life’s changefulness made me wistful. One day we should both be old. We should be free from tempestuous desires. The generous fires of youth would have burnt out. We should know the worth then of the pleasures we now withheld from one another. We should meet, having grown commonsense or satiated, and would wonder wherein lay the mastering attraction we had felt—from what source we had stolen our romance. We should be weary then, walking where our feet now ran. Why could we not last out this moment forever?
She rose, shaking down her skirt and courting my admiration.
“You may get to work on the hooks and eyes, old boy.”
Her voice was jerky with excitement. My fingers were awkward with trembling. As I leant over her, she patted my cheek, flashing a caress with her eyes. “Do you know, you’re handsome, Dante?”