“Oh!” said Katya, half-aloud, as she caught her breath and passed him.
He, giving her a rapid, shy glance, walked across her path and made his way to a shaded pool that even at midday is always cool and fresh.
She watched him as he, far off, sat down in the sunlight that, dripping from the fig-tree above him, flecked him with patches of green and white. She could just hear the low, watery tones of his flute as he improvised with the careless ease of an artist. She had seen him thus on several occasions, and, seeing him, had always felt a little thrill of desire. She wished to love him just for an hour, to have those slender arms about her body, to feel his curved, inexperienced lips against her own. But he was shy and a little afraid. Yes, she was sure he was afraid, for every time she had crossed his path he had hastened his pace to almost a run, and had never once looked back to meet her inquiring and inviting gaze. His fear of her spurred her on to an adventure with him, for she could not understand his sexless eyes, and to her it was ridiculous that a handsome youth should run away from a beautiful and willing girl.
Sitting down in the shade of a rock, she half closed her eyes and looked lazily at him as he sat by his deep pool of coolest water. His flute still gave its music, music that was as free from care and all self-consciousness as the song of a bird. What a dear, foolish and charming boy he was! He could be no more than a year younger than herself, and yet she could swear he had never loved a woman. Loved?—why, not even kissed.
Though she felt angry with him because of his passionless eyes, she could not help experiencing a certain yearning for him, a tenderness that was half laughter, half tears. When, at length, he wandered away, she sighed.
“Oh, damn!” she whispered. “The little fool is an abject idiot! Do I really love him? I wonder.... In any case, I will have some fun with him. If he will not love me, he shall at least hate me.”
Happy with her new interest in life, she planned her mischievous and immodest scheme. Like all Greek women, she was discretion itself, and the first question she put to herself was: “If I do it, will he tell?” But this so necessary question required only a moment’s consideration. Of course he wouldn’t tell, for, in any event, whatever the outcome of her escapade might be, the story of it would be against himself. Moreover, she would so cleverly contrive matters that it would appear that the entire occurrence was one of the many affairs of chance.
And, musing over her plan, she walked rather rapidly down to her garden-home.
Mrs. Kontorompa never dressed for breakfast. In the warm days she always breakfasted in a flimsy dressing-gown on the little veranda outside her bedroom, and it was here early one morning that Katya, looking very demure, joined her. She carried a French translation of one of Joseph Conrad’s books.
“Good morning, mamma,” she said, “how perfectly sweet you look in that pink thing!”