mingling
the gloom of starry spaces, the purple of the sea, and the crimson of
the sky in a magnificent stillness.

"No," she said, slowly. "I never loved him. I think I never . . . He
loves me--perhaps."

The seduction of her slow voice died out of the air, and her raised eyes
remained fixed on nothing, as if indifferent and without thought.

"Ramirez told you he loved you?" asked Nostromo, restraining himself.

"Ah! once--one evening . . ."

"The miserable . . . Ha!"

He had jumped up as if stung by a gad-fly, and stood before her mute
with anger.

"Misericordia Divina! You, too, Gian' Battista! Poor wretch that I am!"
she lamented in ingenuous tones. "I told Linda, and she scolded--she
scolded. Am I to live blind, dumb, and deaf in this world? And she told
father, who took down his gun and cleaned it. Poor Ramirez! Then you
came, and she told you."

He looked at her. He fastened his eyes upon the hollow of her white
throat, which had the invincible charm of things young, palpitating,
delicate, and alive. Was this the child he had known? Was it possible?
It dawned upon him that in these last years he had really seen very
little--nothing--of her. Nothing. She had come into the world like
a thing unknown. She had come upon him unawares. She was a danger. A
frightful danger. The instinctive mood of fierce determination that had
never failed him before the perils of this life added its steady force
to the violence of his passion. She, in a voice that recalled to him the
song of running water, the tinkling of a silver bell, continued--

"And between you three you have brought me here into this captivity to
the sky and water. Nothing else. Sky and water. Oh, Sanctissima Madre.
My hair shall turn grey on this tedious island. I could hate you, Gian'
Battista!"

He laughed loudly. Her voice enveloped him like a caress. She bemoaned
her fate, spreading unconsciously, like a flower its perfume in the
coolness of the evening, the indefinable seduction of her person. Was
it her fault that nobody ever had admired Linda? Even when they were
little, going out with their mother to Mass, she remembered that people
took no notice of Linda, who was fearless, and chose instead to frighten
her, who was timid, with their attention. It was her hair like gold, she
supposed.

He broke out--

"Your hair like gold, and your eyes like violets, and your lips like the
rose; your round arms, your white throat." . . .

Imperturbable