'Always these councils with Tsigaridis and the rest! always these secret messages passing between you and Kato! Give me that letter.'
He refused, shredding Kato's letter and scattering the pieces into the sea.
'What secrets have you with Kato, that you must keep from me?'
'They would have no interest for you,' he replied, remembering that she was untrustworthy—that canker in his confidence.
The breeze fanned slightly up the creek where they were lying on the sand under the shadow of a pine, and out in the dazzling sea a porpoise leapt, turning its slow black curve in the water. The heat simmered over the rocks.
'We share our love,' he said morosely, 'but no other aspect of life. The Islands are nothing to you. An obstacle, not a link.' It was a truth that he rarely confronted.
'You are wrong: a background, a setting for you, which I appreciate.'
'You appreciate the picturesque. I know. You are an artist in appreciation of the suitable stage-setting. But as for the rest....' he made a gesture full of sarcasm and renunciation.
'Give me up, Julian, and all my shortcomings. I have always told you I had but one virtue. I am the first to admit the insufficiency of its claim. Give yourself wholly to your Islands. Let me go.' She spoke sadly, as though conscious of her own irremediable difference and perversity.