Her voice was very gentle. It was the voice of the woman who had slept.
Peter could descry her now, half sitting against the hay. He perceived only the curve of her face and neck beautifully poised above him, for he had fallen at her feet.
"I cannot see you," she said. "Are you still afraid and angry?"
She stooped over him, trying to read his face. She was very quiet. Her voice parted the still air as placidly as a dropped stone makes eddies in the water.
It seemed to offer him an endless comfort.
"I had to come to you," he whispered.
She gathered him into her arms, and kissed him as softly as he had kissed her sleeping. Peter felt as though he were sinking. As she drew her cool hands across his forehead and took his face between them, he found her tender and compelling, and he leaned upon her bosom with the waters of pleasure closing above him.
But the girl had played too long with her passion. She had met him delicately, deliberately holding back her greed, enjoying the tumult in herself and the coming delight of throwing the barriers down. She bent to kiss Peter a second time, and Peter waited for the caress of her song made visible. But, even as she stooped, there came into her eyes a lust which the darkness covered.
Suddenly the veil was torn. A vivid flash of lightning lit her, and flickered away, snatched from cloud to cloud above them. For an instant Peter saw her eyes as she stooped to him. Then darkness blotted her out, and her mouth closed down upon him.
He struggled in her arms. She did not measure the strength of his revolt, but held him fast.