第3章

He had not looked much at her that evening.He had not that freedom of gaze acquired by the habit of society and the frequent meetings with strangers.It was not shyness, but the reserve of a man not used to the world and to the practice of covert staring, with careless curiosity.All he had captured by his first, keen, instantly lowered, glance was the impression that her hair was magnificently red and her eyes very black.It was a troubling effect, but it had been evanescent; he had forgotten it almost till very unexpectedly he saw her coming down the terrace slow and eager, as if she were restraining herself, and with a rhythmic upward undulation of her whole figure.The light from an open window fell across her path, and suddenly all that mass of arranged hair appeared incandescent, chiselled and fluid, with the daring suggestion of a helmet of burnished copper and the flowing lines of molten metal.It kindled in him an astonished admiration.But he said nothing of it to his friend the Editor.Neither did he tell him that her approach woke up in his brain the image of love's infinite grace and the sense of the inexhaustible joy that lives in beauty.No! What he imparted to the Editor were no emotions, but mere facts conveyed in a deliberate voice and in uninspired words.

"That young lady came and sat down by me.She said: 'Are you French, Mr.Renouard?'"He had breathed a whiff of perfume of which he said nothing either - of some perfume he did not know.Her voice was low and distinct.

Her shoulders and her bare arms gleamed with an extraordinary splendour, and when she advanced her head into the light he saw the admirable contour of the face, the straight fine nose with delicate nostrils, the exquisite crimson brushstroke of the lips on this oval without colour.The expression of the eyes was lost in a shadowy mysterious play of jet and silver, stirring under the red coppery gold of the hair as though she had been a being made of ivory and precious metals changed into living tissue.

"...I told her my people were living in Canada, but that I was brought up in England before coming out here.I can't imagine what interest she could have in my history.""And you complain of her interest?"

The accent of the all-knowing journalist seemed to jar on the Planter of Malata.

"No!" he said, in a deadened voice that was almost sullen.But after a short silence he went on."Very extraordinary.I told her I came out to wander at large in the world when I was nineteen, almost directly after I left school.It seems that her late brother was in the same school a couple of years before me.She wanted me to tell her what I did at first when I came out here;what other men found to do when they came out - where they went, what was likely to happen to them - as if I could guess and foretell from my experience the fates of men who come out here with a hundred different projects, for hundreds of different reasons -for no reason but restlessness - who come, and go, and disappear!

Preposterous.She seemed to want to hear their histories.I told her that most of them were not worth telling."The distinguished journalist leaning on his elbow, his head resting against the knuckles of his left hand, listened with great attention, but gave no sign of that surprise which Renouard, pausing, seemed to expect.