The Call of the Blood
Page 49Maurice lit his cigar and stood by Hermione, who was sitting sideways and
leaning her arms on the wall, and looking out into the wide dimness in
which, somewhere, lay the ravine. He did not want to talk just then, and
she kept silence. This was really their wedding night, and both of them
were unusually conscious, but in different ways, of the mystery that lay
about them, and that lay, too, within them. It was strange to be together
up here, far up in the mountains, isolated in their love. Below the wall,
on the side of the ravine, the leaves of the olives rustled faintly as
the wind passed by. And this whisper of the leaves seemed to be meant for
them, to be addressed to them. They were surely being told something by
"Maurice," Hermione said, at last, "does this silence of the mountains
make you wish for anything?"
"Wish?" he said. "I don't know--no, I think not. I have got what I
wanted. I have got you. Why should I wish for anything more? And I feel
at home here. It's extraordinary how I feel at home."
"You! No, it isn't extraordinary at all."
She looked up at him, still keeping her arms on the terrace wall. His
physical beauty, which had always fascinated her, moved her more than
ever in the south, seemed to her to become greater, to have more meaning
He was, indeed, suited to be their happy messenger. At that moment
something within her more than loved him, worshipped him, felt for him an
idolatry that had something in it of pain. A number of thoughts ran
through her mind swiftly. One was this: "Can it be possible that he will
die some day, that he will be dead?" And the awfulness, the unspeakable
horror of the death of the body gripped her and shook her in the dark.
"Oh, Maurice!" she said. "Maurice!"
"What is it?"
She held out her hands to him. He took them and sat down by her.
"If beauty were only deathless!"
"But--but all this is, for us. It was here for the old Greeks to see, and
I suppose it will be here--"
"I didn't mean that."
"I've been stupid," he said, humbly.
"No, my dearest--my dearest one. Oh, how did you ever love me?"