Page:Delight - de la Roche - 1926.djvu/85

 now leafless and discovering the glint of water beyond. The wind struck their faces, fresh and moist from the lagoon. Among the bushes a little bird broke into a song, fragile as crystal, unpremeditated as the song of the wind.

For an instant Delight's heart stood still while every nerve responded to the sudden rush of open space and freedom. Then a shiver of sensuous pleasure rippled over her relaxed body. She closed her eyes and snuffed the air like a young animal.

"Ain't you glad you came?" whispered Jimmy. "Isn't it as pretty as I said?"

She did not answer but began to run from him, not in a straight line, not as the crow flies, but in sudden darts, here and there, looking back at him once over her shoulder in a terrified way. He was half frightened for a moment. Whatever was the girl up to? Why, she looked as though she had gone fey! Perhaps—Jimmy's face went crimson as this thought came—perhaps she was afraid of him, thought he had brought her here—

"Delight! Delight!" he shouted, filled with anger and shame. "Come back here, darn you!"

Still she ran on, but now, as if she were tracing some strange linear design, she ran back towards him, her hat fallen off, her yellow hair flying, her satin skirt plastered between her legs. He could see her face now. She wasn't frightened. She was laughing. She was playing, full of play as a young lamb gambolling on the first morning of spring, or a butterfly darting its zigzag course. Jimmy, like another butterfly, felt the warm fire on his wings. His eyes glowed. He began to chase her.

Here and there they ran, at first in the open, till she realized that she would soon be captured there, then among the shrubs and willows, where brambles tore at her skirt, and the lush grass wet her ankles. At last on the