Page:In a winter city, by Ouida.djvu/265

 She had never thought of natural beauty, or of the lives of the poor, save now and then when they had been recalled to her by some silvery landscape of Corot, or some sad rural idyl of Millet; as she sat here, she felt as if she had passed all her life in some gorgeous heated theatre, and had only now come out into the open air, and under the arch of heaven.

There was a wonderful dreamy, lulling charm in this olive-hidden solitude; she did not care to move, to think, to analyze. He did not speak to her of love; they both avoided words, which, spoken, might break the spell of their present peace and part them; but every now and then his eyes looked into hers, and were heavy with the langour of silent passion, and stirred her heart to strange sweet tumult.

When the boy sang the passionate, plaintive love-songs, then her face grew warm, and her eyelids fell—it was no longer an unknown tongue to her.

She would not think of the future—she resigned herself to the charm of the hour.

So also did he.