At that moment, the moment of the going down of the sun, the wind dropped and the passing clouds let in the gleam of the sunset at the window. It rested goldenly on Seth's face. It illumined it. It glorified it.
Cyclona looked at him long and earnestly, at the strong, fine lines of sadness brought beautifully out by this unexpected high-light of the skies, accentuated Rembrandt-like, against the darkness of the earth-colored hole in the ground.
Then she bent her sunburnt head and a tear fell on her hand outstretched upon the table.
At sight of the tear Seth was like a man who is all at once drunk with new wine. There is truth in the wine. There are times when it clears the brain for the moment and reveals things as they are.
He looked at Cyclona with new eyes. It was as if he had never before seen her. She differed from Celia as the wild rose differs from the rose that blooms in hothouses, and yet how beautiful she was! He realized for the first time her wonderful beauty. So olive of complexion with the delicate tinge of rose showing through, so bronze of hair in close-cut sun-kissed curls!
The little curls that gave her a boyish look in spite of the fact that she had blossomed into radiant womanhood. The big brown eyes. The curve of the neck, the little tip-tilted chin!
Seth had been hardly human if the thought of forgetting Celia and her indifference in Cyclona's arms had not more than once presented itself.
It presented itself now with the strength of strong winds.
Without home or kindred, without tie or connection, she was a flower in his pathway. He had only to reach out and pluck her and wear her on his heart. There were none to gainsay him. No mortal lived who dared defend her or say nay.
Why waste his life, then, in dreams and fantasies, in regrets, and hopings, when here lay a glowing, breathing, living reality?