She drew weakly back, protesting feebly, with a girlish
plaint:
“No, no; it would hurt me.... I feel that
I’m dying.”
“You belong to me,” the youth continued
with an exaltation ill-suppressed. “You
belong to me forever; to gaze into your dear eyes,
and to murmur in your ear, your sweet, beautiful, name,
and die, if need be, here. What do we care for
the world and its opinions?”
And Leonora with weakening resistance, continued to
refuse:
“No, no.... I must not. It’s
a feeling I can’t explain.”
And that was so. The gentle quiver of Nature
under the kiss of Springtime, the intense perfume
of the flower that is the emblem of virginity, had
transfigured that madcap singer, that adventuress of
a career so checkered, who had been violently thrust
into her first experience of passion, and now for
the first time felt the blush of modesty in the arms
of a man. Nature, intoxicating her, shattering
her will, seemed to have created a strange virginity
in that body so familiar with the call of passion.
“Oh, Rafael, what is happening to me?...
What’s happening to me? It must be love;
a new love that I did not think I should ever know....
Rafael ... Rafael, my own boy!”
And weeping softly, she took his head in her hands,
pressed her lips to his, and then fell back in her
seat with eyes distended, maddened with the joy of
that kiss.
“I belong to you, Rafael! Yours ... but
forever. I have always loved you from the first,
but now ... I adore you.... For the first
time in my life I say that with all my soul.”
Hardly able to realize his good fortune, Rafael was
thrilled by a deeply generous sentiment. There
was nothing he would not give to that woman....
“Yes; you belong to me forever.... I will
marry you.”
But in his dreamy, wild intoxication he saw the artiste’s
eyes open wide in surprise, as a sad smile flitted
across her lips.
“Marry me And why?... That’s well
enough for other women; but me you must love, my darling
child, ever so much, as much as you can.... Just
love me!... I believe only in Love!”
“But my dear child, when are we getting to this
island of yours?... It bores me to be here sitting
on this seat, so far away from my little boy, watching
his arms get tired from all that rowing. I must
kiss him.. even if he says no! It will rest him,
I am sure.”
And rising to her feet, Leonora took two steps forward
in the white boat, though threatening to upset it,
and kissed Rafael several times. He lay aside
the oars and laughingly defended himself.
“Madcap! We’ll never get there at
this rate. With rests like this we make very
little progress, and I’ve promised to take you
to my island.”
Once again he bent to the oars, heading out toward
midstream over the moonlit water, as if to vouchsafe
the groves on either bank an equal pleasure in the
romantic escapade.
