Daughter of the sea!
Marna of the quick disdain,
Starting at the dream of stain!
At a smile with love aglow,
At a frown a statued woe,
Standing pinnacled in pain
Till a kiss sets free!”
Wanza rose and came close to me as I finished. Her black elf-locks brushed my shoulder. “If I was a gipsy and you was a gipsy,” she whispered, “things would be different.”
I saw her eyes. Some of the tenderness of the last few lines of the song was in my voice as I whispered back, “How different, child?”
I stood looking down at her, and her eyes—burningly blue—sank into mine. The wind tossed her hair out. A strand brushed my lips. She seemed an unknown alien maid, in her disguise, and in the shifting pink light from the low burning fire. I took a bit of her hair in my hand and I looked into her face curiously. I stood thus for a long moment, catching my breath fiercely, staring, staring—her hands held mine, her scarf of red silk whipped my throat—how strangely beautiful her face, the full lids, the subtle chin, the delicate yet warm lips! Had I ever seen as beautiful a girl-face? The soft wind swept past us sweet with balm o’ Gilead; the brook was awake and singing to the rushes; but the birds were asleep, and a sweet solitude was ours. This girl was of my world, all gipsy she, wilder than most. And I—was I not as wide a wanderer as any gipsy? as homeless? I smiled into the eyes that smiled into mine, and I hummed below my breath: