“Well, it is very kind of you, I am sure. Grischka you can go.”
“Good-night, Miss,” said the boy, as he noiselessly disappeared. Sina and Sanine were left there alone.
“Take my arm,” he suggested, “or else you may fall.”
Sina placed her arm in his, feeling a strange emotion as she touched his muscles that were hard as steel. Thus they went on in the darkness, through the woods to the river. In the wood it was pitch-dark, as if all the trees had been fused and melted in a warm, impenetrable mist.
“Oh! how dark it is!”
“That doesn’t matter,” whispered Sanine in her ear. His voice trembled slightly. “I like woods best at night time. It is then that man strips off his everyday mask and becomes bolder, more mysterious, more interesting.”
As the sandy soil slipped beneath their feet, Sina found it difficult to save herself from falling. It was this darkness and this physical contact with a supple, masterful male to whom she had always been drawn, that now caused her most exquisite agitation. Her face glowed, her soft arm shared its warmth with that of Sanine’s, and her laughter was forced and incessant.
At the foot of the hill it was less dark. Moonlight lay on the river, and a cool breeze from its broad surface fanned their cheeks. Mysteriously the wood receded in the gloom, as though it had given them into the river’s charge.
“Where is your boat?”
“There it is.”