I drew near to the window in a thrill of alarm. Inarime was seated on the mule, with no other shelter from the beating sunbeams than the white kerchief bound round her head. A strong impulse swept through me to forbid this departure, to cry out passionately against the injustice of flight and desertion. But this folly would but imperil my position. What right had I to usurp authority and claim upon the surprised declaration of her eloquent eyes? And there came upon me a sense of the perfect tact of her action, its true fitness in accord with the dignity of her sex. Pursuit was for me,—not flight, but a delicate, cold aloofness was hers by divine privilege. Not other would I have her than sensitively alive to the gracelessness of serene and easy conquest. And I was not hurt, was I, by this withdrawal from the new light of day, for her will must ever now be my own.
CHAPTER XV. (From Reineke’s Note Book.)
A SILENT BETROTHAL.
When I joined Selaka in his afternoon stroll, he appeared to notice something different in my step and in my eyes. I felt myself as if I sprang rather than walked, and my glance saw nothing distinctly that it rested upon: it was impeded and clouded by the intense illumination from within. Yet never before did the bare, sunny hills look to me more lovely; never did the Greek isles, rising above their happy waters like rose and mauve clouds upon a blue sky, seem more dreamily enchanting. I remember nothing of our conversation. I walked beside the old man, drunk with my own speechless bliss, and answered his questions at random. And all the while my soul sang aloud its pæan, and the whole earth seemed to smile upon me out of one girl’s grave luminous gaze. Inarime! It seemed to me that the sweet air trembled with the shaking impulses of my intemperate gladness.
Two days passed thus. Blind and absent as I was, I could remark the sullen suspicion of Aristides’ manner, no longer vexing with its impertinent familiarity, but repulsing me with insolent sullenness. I paid no heed to this childishness. But I was struck with the fellow’s extraordinary penetration. Whence could he have divined there was aught in me to fear or distrust? There was something of the extreme fineness and subtlety of the animal instinct in his intuition, which completely eluded my observation. But Annunziata simply attributed my restored strength and serene joy to the notoriously beneficial influences of mountain air. She always greeted me with her cordial smile, and sometimes ventured to pat my hand in a motherly way. I delighted in her noiseless activity, and in her sturdy self-reliance. Tears for self I should imagine had never dimmed her bright black eyes, and the lines time had traced upon her brown forehead were not lines of pain and mental travail, but the marks of healthy, contented labour. It was a lesson to watch her carry her water jar from the village fountain, or lay the table, without hurry or anxiety, with the perfect ease of punctuality and order. Selaka, I felt, was studying me, half in perplexity, half in alarm, yet with increasing approval. He liked me, and with the days grew his cautious esteem into precipitate affection.
On the third day from my meeting with Inarime, he joined me in the early morning, as I sat upon the terrace, smoking and revelling in the lovely air. My heart could no longer bear this silence and separation, and my tongue at last resolved to give utterance to its urgent claim.
“Will your daughter remain much longer at Mousoulou?” I asked, conscious that my voice was unsteady from eagerness.
“I have not yet decided,” said Selaka quietly.