I looked round. In a corner, ensconced in a tiny, wooden hut, an old woman was knitting a stocking, and looking at us through her spectacles. She sold beer, gingerbread, and seltzer water to tourists. We seated ourselves on a bench, and began drinking some fairly cold beer out of heavy pewter pots. Acia still sat without moving, with her feet tucked under her, and a muslin scarf wrapped round her head; her graceful figure stood out distinctly and finely against the clear sky; but I looked at her with a feeling of hostility. The evening before I had detected something forced, something not quite natural about her.… ‘She’s trying to impress us,’ I thought; ‘whatever for? What a childish trick.’ As though guessing my thoughts, she suddenly turned a rapid, searching glance upon me, laughed again, leaped in two bounds from the wall, and going up to the old woman, asked her for a glass of water.
‘Do you think I am thirsty?’ she said, addressing her brother; ‘no; there are some flowers on the walls, which must be watered.’
Gagin made her no reply; and with the glass in her hand, she began scrambling over the ruins, now and then stopping, bending down, and with comic solemnity pouring a few drops of water, which sparkled brightly in the sun. Her movements were very charming, but I felt, as before, angry with her, even while I could not help admiring her lightness and agility. At one dangerous place she purposely screamed, and then laughed.… I felt still more annoyed with her.
‘Why, she climbs like a goat,’ the old woman mumbled, turning for an instant from her stocking.
At last, Acia had emptied the glass, and with a saucy swing she walked back to us. A queer smile was faintly twitching at her eyebrows, nostrils, and lips; her dark eyes were screwed up with a half insolent, half merry look.
‘You consider my behaviour improper,’ her face seemed to say; ‘all the same, I know you’re admiring me.’
‘Well done, Acia, well done,’ Gagin said in a low voice.
She seemed all at once overcome with shame, she dropped her long eyelashes, and sat down beside us with a guilty air. At that moment I got for the first time a good look at her face, the most changeable face I had ever seen. A few instants later it had turned quite pale, and wore an intense, almost mournful expression, its very features seemed larger, sterner, simpler. She completely subsided. We walked round the ruins (Acia followed us), and admired the views. Meanwhile it was getting near dinner-time. As he paid the old woman, Gagin asked for another mug of beer, and turning to me, cried with a sly face—
‘To the health of the lady of your heart.’
‘Why, has he—have you such a lady?’ Acia asked suddenly.