'I heard the voice of my fantastic Eve, of whom I once thought,' she added, fixing her eyes on Eve, 'as the purest of beings, utterly removed from the sordid and the ugly.'
Eve suddenly flung herself on her knees beside her.
'Ah, Kato,' she said, 'you throw me off my guard when you play to me. I'm not always hard and calculating, and your music melts me. It hurts me to be, as I constantly am, on the defensive. I'm too suspicious by nature to be very happy, Kato. There are always shadows, and ... and tragedy. Please don't judge me too harshly. Tell me what you mean by sordid and ugly—what is there sordid or ugly in love?'
Kato dared much; she replied in a level voice,—
'Jealousy. Waste. Exorbitance. Suspicion. I am sometimes afraid of your turning Julian into another of those men who hoped to find their inspiration in a woman, but found only a hindrance.'
She nodded sagely at Eve, and the gold wheat-ears trembled in her hair.
Eve darkened at Julian's name; she got up and stood by the door looking into the court. Kato went on,—
'You are so much of a woman, Eve, that it becomes a responsibility. It is a gift, like genius. And a great gift without a great soul is a curse, because such a gift is too strong to be disregarded. It's a force, a danger. You think I am preaching to you'—Eve would never know what the words were costing her—'but I preach only because of my belief in Julian—and in you,' she hastened to add, and caught Eve's hand; 'don't frown, you child. Look at me; I have no illusions and no sensitiveness on the score of my own appearance; look at me hard, and let me speak to you as a sexless creature.'
Eve was touched in spite of her hostility. She was also shocked and distressed. There was to her, so young herself, so insolently vivid in her sex-pride, something wrong and painful in Kato's renouncement of her right. She had a sense of betrayal.
'Hush, Anastasia,' she whispered. They were both extremely moved, and the constant volleys of firing played upon their nerves and stripped reserve from them.