“Just observe his lower jaw,” said Mrs. Volney, with her infantile lisp.
CHAPTER VI.
When the men left the dining-room they found the women in the patio, or scattered about the corridor. There was no moon, but the clear sky blazed with stars, and colored lanterns swung between the pillars or among the broad leaves of the palm-trees. The girls (the married women were little more) had thrown lace or silken scarves over their heads, and fluttered their fans idly. Clive recalled all he had read of the old time, and imagined himself back among the careless dons and doñas who lived for little but pleasure, and had not a prescience of the complex civilization to enter their Arcadia and rout its very memory.
Miss Belmont was sitting on the corridor, leaning over the low balustrade, her hands lightly clasped. She had draped a white lace mantilla about her head, and looked more Spanish than Miss West. It seemed to Clive that she had a faculty of looking whatever she wished. Someone handed her a guitar. She leaned against the pillar and tuned it absently. Clive walked over and stood staring down on her, his hands in his pockets. She sang, in a rich contralto voice, a Spanish song, whose words he could not understand, but which was the most passionate he had ever heard. Her head was thrown back. She sang frankly to Clive; her face changed with every line.
When it was over Mrs. Cartright breathed a plaintive sigh. “That’s the handsomest song that Helena sings,” she announced.
Helena arose abruptly. “Come,” she said to Clive. “Let us go for a walk.”
He followed her out into the rose-garden. There were no lanterns here, and it looked wilder than by day. The air was very warm and sweet. Helena plucked one of the pink Castilian roses, and fastened back her mantilla with it, exposing a charming ear.
“You will never find any occupation so becoming to your hands,” said Clive dutifully. “Are your feet as perfect?”
“They are something to dream of,” said Miss Belmont flippantly.
They went out on to the terrace. The ocean pounded monotonously, tossing spray high into the air. Clive looked at his companion. Her head was thrown back, her lips were slightly apart. She looked like a woman who held a ball of fire between her finger-tips, and toyed with it caressingly.