He walked aft. Josine was there, sitting in a wicker-work chair.
There was really no transition between the combative rancor and revolt he had felt and the access of passion and desire which shook him at the sight of her. Had he, indeed, really felt any rancor and revulsion? Everything was drowned in an immense need to clasp her in his arms.
Enemy? Thief? Criminal if you like. But, after all, only a woman—above all, woman. And what a woman!
Dressed, as usual, in a simple frock, she was wearing that delicate veil which softened the luster of her hair and gave her so close a resemblance to the Virgin of Bernardino Luini. Her neck, of a warm creaminess, was bare. Her slender hands lay clasped in her lap. She was gazing at the abrupt slope of the Deux-Amants. And nothing could appear sweeter and more innocent than that face on which rested that perpetual, profound, and mysterious, smile.
Ralph was almost touching her at the moment at which she perceived him. She flushed slightly and lowered her eyelids, and she seemed not to dare to let her eyes rest on him through her long brown eyelashes. Never did a young girl display greater shyness and ingenuous timidity, less affectation and coquetry.
He was deeply touched by it. She feared this first meeting with him. Was he not going to abuse her, to throw himself on her, strike her, and heap abominable epithets on her? Or was he going to leave her with that scorn which is the worst of all things?
Ralph was trembling like a child. At the actual moment nothing counted with him but that which counts eternally with lovers—the kiss, the hands that clasp, the frenzy of glances that fail and of lips that faint with pleasure.
He fell on his knees before her.
CHAPTER X.
THE MUTILATED HAND
The penalty of such loves is the silence to which they are condemned. Even when the mouths are speaking, the noise of the words they exchange does not break the heavy silence of the inner, solitary thoughts. Each follows his, or her, course of thought without ever penetrating into the very life of the other. A dispiriting intercourse from which Ralph, always so ready to expand, suffered more and more.