He looked at her with the smile which was his only but sufficient beauty; the violent, exciting words flowed in her ear, amid the sound of rising waves and the distant talk of the fishermen.  His hand crushed hers; his mad, imploring eyes repelled and constrained her.  The wild hungers and curiosities of her being rushed to meet him; she heard the echo of her own words to Ashe:  “More life—­more life!—­even though it lead to pain—­and agony—­and tears!”

Then she wrenched herself away—­suddenly, contemptuously.

“Of course, that’s all nonsense—­romantic nonsense.  You’ve perhaps forgotten that I am one of the women who don’t stir without their maid.”

Cliffe’s expression changed.  He thrust his hands into his pockets.

“Oh, well, if you must have a maid,” he said, dryly, “that settles it.  A maid would be the deuce.  And yet—­I think I could find you a Bosnian girl—­strong and faithful—­”

Their eyes met—­his already full of a kind of ownership, tender, confident, humorous even—­hers alive with passionate anger and resistance.

“Without a qualm!” she repeated, in a low voice—­“without a qualm!  Mon Dieu!”

She turned and looked towards the Adriatic.

“Where are we?” she said, imperiously.

For a gesture of command on Cliffe’s part, unseen by her, had sent the boat eastward, spinning before the wind.  The lagoon was no longer tranquil.  It was covered with small waves; and the roar of the outer sea, though still far off, was already in their ears.  The mist lifting showed white, distant crests of foam on a tumbling field of water, and to the north, clothed in tempestuous purple, the dim shapes of mountains.

Kitty raised herself, and beckoned towards the captain of the bragozzo.

“Giuseppe!”

“Commanda, Eccellenza!”

The man came forward.

With a voice sharp and clear, she gave the order to return at once to Venice.  Cliffe watched her, the veins on his forehead swelling.  She knew that he debated with himself whether he should give a counter-order or no.

“A Venezia!” said Kitty, waving her hand towards the sailors, her eyes shining under the tangle of her hair.

The helm was put round, and beneath a tacking sail the boat swept southward.

With an awkward laugh Cliffe fell back into his seat, stretching his long limbs across the boat.  He had spoken under a strong and genuine impulse.  His passion for her had made enormous strides in these few wild days beside her.  And yet the fantastic poet’s sense responded at a touch to the new impression.  He shook off the heroic mood as he had doffed his Bosnian cloak.  In a few minutes, though the heightened color remained, he was chatting and laughing as though nothing had happened.

* * * * *

She, exhausted physically and morally by her conflict with him, hardly spoke on the way home.  He entertained her, watching her all the time—­a hundred speculations about her passing through his brain.  He understood perfectly how the insight which she had allowed him into her grief and her remorse had broken down the barriers between them.  Her incapacity for silence, and reticence, had undone her.  Was he a villain to have taken advantage of it?