"There is no help for it!" she repeated to herself, seeming to repeat a formula of condemnation heard by her in the same mysterious way that Stelio had heard the wonderful melodies.
She leaned forward, resting her chin in her hand and her elbow on her knee; and in this attitude she gazed a long time into the fire, with a slight frown on her brow.
As Stelio looked at her, his soul was troubled. He yearned to find some way of breaking the iron band that oppressed her, of dissipating that mist of sadness, of leading his beloved back to joy.
The fire in its sudden burst of flame illumined her face and hair; her forehead was as beautiful as a noble manly brow; something natural and untamed was suggested in the rippling waves and changeful hue of her thick hair.
"What are you looking at so intently?" she said at last, feeling his fixed gaze. "Have you found a gray hair?"
He knelt before his love again, flexible and tender.
"I see only your beauty. In you I always find something that delights me. I was looking then at the strange wave of your hair here—a wave not made by the comb, but by the storm!"
He slipped his fingers through the thick tresses. She closed her eyes, feeling again the spell of his terrible power over her.
"I see only your beauty. When you close your eyes thus, I feel that you are mine to the depth of your heart—lost in me, as the soul is one with the body: a single life, mine and thine."