There was a restraint and firmness--an unconscious grace in the pose, and I felt my pulses quicken with eagerness to see the face. Could this be a young judge measuring awful depths of iniquity in a criminal? A cold Diana reproving undue tenderness, a wise Athena rebuking folly? I listened. The villager’s brogue and voluble utterances were difficult to follow. But I gathered that there was question of a letter that had been written, and that the dictator’s mind had altered, and that she now wanted one written in an entirely different spirit.
“I am so sorry, Kyria. He will never come back to me if he gets that letter, and what does anything matter to me as long as he remains away? Tell him that I am not angry with him; that I will bear anything rather than that he should not come back to me. If he would only leave her and come away from Smyrna! Tell him anything, young lady, that will touch him,--I am so lonely, so weary of waiting for him!” I heard the woman say.
“But, my poor woman, what proof have I that, if I rewrite the letter in this new mood, you will not be sorry for the leniency in another hour, and implore me to write an angrier letter for you?” The voice was clear and soft, with a curious throat sound that somehow carried with it the idea of velvet. Something in it seemed to draw me with an ache of desire to see the speaker. I acted upon an unaccountable and irresistible impulse. It compelled me in a kind of dreamy expectation down the marble steps, and, standing with my hand upon the top of the pillar, close to her, my intense gaze was an equal compulsion to her.
She moved her head round slowly, and our eyes met. Was it the shock of recognition, the awful bliss of surprised surrender, the force of revelation, undreamed, unawaited, yet not the less complete because of its suddenness, that held our glances in a steady dismay?
I laid down my arms at once happy, contented, prone, in a sacred servitude; but she, I could divine, with the delicate instinct of maidenhood, strove to struggle and release her soul. But no effort of even her imperious will could move her eyes from mine, upon which they rested in the mute eloquence of dazzled entreaty, shining as if they were filled with light. And then slowly their golden hue faded into a wistful brown, and slowly, grudgingly drooped their lids,--and mine, as if by instinct, dropped. It was only afterwards that I could remember the glory of her resplendent youth, and dwell upon the flash of her great beauty.