“Your mother said you were here.”
“And how do you like it, my Poissac?”
She made a wide gesture with her hand. They stood silent a moment, side by side, looking about them. In front of the arbor was a parterre of rounded box-bushes edging beds where disorderly roses hung in clusters of pink and purple and apricot-color. And beyond it a brilliant emerald lawn full of daisies sloped down to an old grey house with, at one end, a squat round tower that had an extinguisher-shaped roof. Beyond the house were tall, lush-green poplars, through which glittered patches of silver-grey river and of yellow sand banks. From somewhere came a drowsy scent of mown grass.
“How brown you are!” she said again. “I thought I had lost you.... You might kiss me, Jean.”
The muscles of his arms tightened about her shoulders. Her hair flamed in his eyes. The wind that rustled through broad grape-leaves made a flutter of dancing light and shadow about them.
“How hot you are with the sun!” she said. “I love the smell of the sweat of your body. You must have run very hard, coming here.”
“Do you remember one night in the spring we walked home from Pelleas and Melisande? How I should have liked to have kissed you then, like this!” Andrews's voice was strange, hoarse, as if he spoke with difficulty.
“There is the chateau tres froid et tres profond,” she said with a little laugh.
“And your hair. 'Je les tiens dans les doits, je les tiens dans la bouche.... Toute ta chevelure, toute ta chevelure, Melisande, est tombee de la tour.... D'you remember?”
“How wonderful you are.”