It was not exactly the sound of a soft footfall, nor of breathing, but it might have been either.  It was short and distinct, such a slight noise as might be made by drawing the palm of the hand quickly over a piece of stuff, or by a short breath checked almost instantly, or by a shoeless foot slipping a few inches on a thick carpet.  Contarini stood still and listened, for though he had heard it distinctly he had no impression of the direction whence it had come.  It was not repeated, and he began to search the room carefully.

He could find nothing.  The single window, high above the floor, was carefully closed and covered by a heavy curtain which could not possibly have moved in the stillness.  The tapestry was smoothly drawn and fastened upon the four walls.  There was no furniture in the room but a big table and the benches and chairs.  Above the tapestries the bare walls were painted, up to the carved ceiling.  There was nothing to account for the noise.  Contarini looked nervously over his shoulder as he left the room, and more than once again as he went up the marble staircase, candle in hand.  There is probably nothing more disturbing to people of ordinary nerves than a sound heard in a lonely place and for which it is impossible to find a reason.

When he reached the broad landing he smiled at himself and looked back a last time, shading the candle with his hand, so as to throw the light down the staircase.  Then he entered the apartment and locked himself in.  Having passed through the large square vestibule and through a small room that led from it, he raised the latch of the next door very cautiously, shaded the candle again and looked in.  A cool breeze almost put out the light.

“I am not asleep,” said a sweet young voice.  “I am here by the window.”

He smiled happily at the words.  The candle-light fell upon a woman’s face, as he went forward—­such a face as men may see in dreams, but rarely in waking life.

Half sitting, half lying, she rested in Eastern fashion among the silken cushions of a low divan.  The open windows of the balcony overlooked the low houses opposite, and the night breeze played with the little ringlets of her glorious hair.  Her soft eyes looked up to her lover’s face with infinite trustfulness, and their violet depths were like clear crystal and as tender as the twilight of a perfect day.  She looked at him, her head thrown back, one ivory arm between it and the cushion, the other hand stretched out to welcome his.  Her mouth was like a southern rose when there is dew on the smooth red leaves.  In a maze of creamy shadows, the fine web of her garment followed the lines of her resting limbs in delicate folds, and one small white foot was quite uncovered.  Her fan of ostrich feathers lay idle on the Persian carpet.

“Come, my beloved,” she said.  “I have waited long.”

Contarini knelt down, and first he kissed the arching instep, and then her hand, that felt like a young dove just stirring under his touch, and his lips caressed the satin of her arm, and at last, with a fierce little choking cry, they found her own that waited for them, and there was no more room for words.  In the silence of the June night one kiss answered another, and breath mingled with breath, and sigh with sigh.