Page:The plumed serpent - 1926.djvu/202

my knowledge is like a fish-hook through my gills, pulling me in spasmodic desire. Oh, who will free me from the grappling of my eyes, from the impurity of sharp sight! Daughter of Eve, of greedy vision, why don’t these men save me from the sharpness of my own eyes!”

She rose and went to the edge of the terrace. Yellow as daffodils underneath, two birds emerged out of their own invisibility. In the little shingle bay, with a small break-water, where the boat was pulled up and chained, two men were standing in the water, throwing out a big, fine round net, catching the little silvery fish called charales, which flicked out of the brownish water sometimes like splinters of glass.

“Ramón!” Kate heard Doña Carlota’s voice. “Won’t you put something on?”

The wife had been able to bear it no more.

“Yes! Thank you for the tea,” said Ramón, rising.

Kate watched him go down the terrace, in his own peculiar silence, his sandals making a faint swish on the tiles.

“Oh, Señora Caterina!” came the voice of Carlota. “Come and drink your tea. Come!”

Kate returned to the table, saying:

“It seems so wonderfully peaceful here.”

“Peaceful!” echoed Carlota. “Ah, I do not find it peaceful. There is a horrible stillness, which makes me afraid.”

“Do you come out very often?” said Kate, to Cipriano.

“Yes. Fairly often. Once a week. Or twice,” he replied, looking at her with a secret consciousness which she could not understand, lurking in his black eyes.

These men wanted to take her will away from her, as if they wanted to deny her the light of day.

“I must be going home now,” she said. “The sun will be setting.”

“Ya va?” said Cipriano, in his soft, velvety Indian voice, with a note of distant surprise and reproach. Will you go already?”

“Oh, no, Señora!” cried Carlota. “Stay until to-morrow. Oh, yes, stay until to-morrow, with me.”

“They will expect us home,” she said, wavering.

“Ah, no! I can send a boy to say you will come to-morrow. Yes? You will stay? Ah, good, good!”