Her voice was tremulous now, for in her blood there was the strangest, wildest urging to come at his call. She wondered how long she could hold out against it—if he did not go soon.
"Why should you want me to?"
"Why? Because I want to know whether you are real ... or only a wraith, a streak of moonlight, a phantom of my brain. I want to be sure that the world is still going round, and that I am still in it. All I can see is a faint wedge-shaped gleam of white, crowned with strange stars. Have you tiny white stars in the darkness of your hair? Is your hair as black as the raven's wing, as night—as hell?"
"Yes; it is."
"And are your eyes long cameos of carved moonlight?"
"They are indeed!"
"Then Carissima—Adorissima ... come and sit on the grass."
All the magic sweetness and sadness of Ireland was in his words. But he did not expect the slightest result from this impassioned entreaty, for he had long ago made up his mind that this strange witch of the night, who could throw the thrush's note into her voice, and quote Voltaire, and daintily but cynically suggest that he was drunk, was no simple maid to be beguiled by the tongue. This was a woman who knew her world and all the moves in the great game, and as a man who had played that same game often and well, and could appreciate a clever opponent, he awaited her next move, secure in the thought that it would not fail to be an interesting one.
What he was wholly unprepared for was a glimmering fragrant presence beside him on the grass. The breath of her mouth was so close that he could feel it in little waves across his face. In the purple darkness he descried her white gown, and down each shoulder of it a long, long rope of blackness. The thought of a woman's hair had always some sorcery for him. He could never look at beautiful hair, even in the most conventional surroundings, without turmoil of flesh and spirit, inward curses at his own base nature, and revilings of all things feminine formed to lure the brain and bind the soul of man.
At this moment every instinct of his being, every desire of his nature, fought with his self-control, desiring, inciting, almost compelling him to stretch out his hands to this witch-woman's hair and draw her nearer. Little beads broke out on his forehead; he dug his hands into the earth beside him. He could hear her breathing. A perfumed warmth came out of her and stole to him. He desired greatly that she should speak; but she did not; only sat there giving out perfume and weaving God knew what Ephesian spells to bind him. At about this time it seemed to him that this was a very fine dream and that a fine thing to do would be to get up and go hence before the dream could break. But that mood was soon inconstant. Silence enfolded them—a silence that was mutable and disquieting. At last he leaned towards her and spoke, dry-throated: