The faint light of the dying day fell with a pale glimmer upon her soft throat and rounded chin. Luke found himself disinclined to resist her.
There were tears on the girl’s cheek when, loosening her hold upon his neck, she sank down on the idyllic couch offered them, and closed her eyes in childish contentment.
Luke hung over her thoughtfully and sadly. There is always something sad,—something that seems to bring with it a withering breath from the ultimate futility of the universe,—about a lover’s recognition that the form which formerly thrilled him with ecstasy, now leaves him cold and unmoved. Such sadness, chilly and desolate as the hand of death itself, crept over the stone-carver’s heart, as he looked at the gently-stirring breast and softly-parted lips of his beautiful mistress. He bent down and kissed her forehead, caressing her passively yielded fingers.
She opened her eyes and smiled at him, the lingering smile of a soothed and happy infant.
They remained thus, silent and at rest, for several moments. It was not long, however, before the subtle instinct of an enamoured woman made the girl aware that her friend’s responsiveness had been but a momentary impulse. She started up, her eyes wide-open and her lips trembling.
“Luke!” she murmured, “Luke, darling,—” Her voice broke, in a curious little sob.
Luke gazed at her blankly, thankful that the weight of weary foreknowledge upon his face was concealed from her by the growing darkness.
“I want to say to you, my dear love,” the girl went on, her bosom rising and falling in pitiful embarrassment, and her white fingers nervously scooping up handful after handful of the shadowy grain.