Page:Georges Eekhoud - Escal Vigor, a novel.djvu/91

Rh projected out of herself to melt away in an immeasurable sea of delight.

While he holds her under him, she feels herself strongly hypnotised by the expression in the winnower's eyes, and ever afterwards will she associate the mute entreaty in those eyes with the livid sparkling of the glowworms, the scraping of the crickets, the expiring notes of the Roseland chorus, and the rhythm of the old-world song of Ariaan:

The night-prowler raised himself from off her, still panting, his breath coming quicker than at his work aforetime, and having helped her to rise in her turn, he held her a few moments by the wrists, gave her a look of gratitude mingled with penitence, and walked away on trembling limbs, adjusting his dress as he went. She never forgot his sorrel face nor the zigzags that his silhouette traced in the motionless space into which he finally disappeared.

Blandine dragged herself, more distressed than indignant, towards her home, and on going to bed, she vowed to herself never to reveal what had happened to her. An