As she noted the shadow across her path, she paused sharply, then, as their eyes met, he saw the flowing motion of her figure stiffening into curves that lent a suggestion of resistance. He caught the momentary impatience of her brow and the start of resentment in her eyes.
His purpose vanquished, he stood mute in the face of the striking chill of her pride.
For a moment they regarded each other in silence, a silence that resembled the settling waters after the plunging of a stone.
Her face was very white, and her eyes, as they met his, shone with an almost supernatural lustre.
Yet this silence was putting the two asunder, contrasting them vividly, balancing them one against the other.
The repose and the self-confidence ran all towards the woman.
Her face waited.
She seemed to look down from above on Francesco the monk.
A moment ago he had had so much to say, and now his own voicelessness begot anger and rebellion.
Ilaria was looking at him, as if she saw something, and nothing, and Francesco felt that her eyes called him a fool. Her air of aloofness, as of standing above some utterly impersonal matter, put the man under her feet.