Sanine Part 60

"Cavalier! Ha! Ha!" repeated Grischka merrily, stamping his bare feet.

"And what are _you_ doing here?" she asked.

"Oh! we're just having a drink together."

"You said 'we'?"

"Yes--Schafroff, Svarogitsch, Ivanoff ..."

"Oh! Yourii Nicolaijevitsch is with you, is he?" asked Sina, and she blushed. To utter the name of him she loved sent a thrill through her as though she were looking down into some precipice.

"Why do you ask?"

"Because--er--I met him," she answered, blus.h.i.+ng deeper.

"Well, good-bye!"

Sanine gently held her proffered hand in his.

"If you like, I will row you across to the other side. Why should you go all that way round?"

"Oh! no, please don't trouble," said Sina, feeling strangely shy.

"Yes, let him row you across," said little Grischka persuasively, "for there's such a lot of mud on the bank."

"Very well, then. You can go back to your mother."

"Aren't you afraid to cross the fields alone?" asked the boy.

"I will accompany you as far as the town," said Sanine.

"But what will your friends say?"

"Oh! that doesn't matter. They'll stop there till dawn. Besides, they've bored me enough as it is."

"Well, it is very kind of you, I am sure. Grischka you can go."

"Good-night, Miss," said the boy, as he noiselessly disappeared. Sina and Sanine were left there alone.

"Take my arm," he suggested, "or else you may fall."

Sina placed her arm in his, feeling a strange emotion as she touched his muscles that were hard as steel. Thus they went on in the darkness, through the woods to the river. In the wood it was pitch-dark, as if all the trees had been fused and melted in a warm, impenetrable mist.

"Oh! how dark it is!"

"That doesn't matter," whispered Sanine in her ear. His voice trembled slightly. "I like woods best at night time. It is then that man strips off his everyday mask and becomes bolder, more mysterious, more interesting."

As the sandy soil slipped beneath their feet, Sina found it difficult to save herself from falling. It was this darkness and this physical contact with a supple, masterful male to whom she had always been drawn, that now caused her most exquisite agitation. Her face glowed, her soft arm shared its warmth with that of Sanine's, and her laughter was forced and incessant.

At the foot of the hill it was less dark. Moonlight lay on the river, and a cool breeze from its broad surface fanned their cheeks.

Mysteriously the wood receded in the gloom, as though it had given them into the river's charge.

"Where is your boat?"

"There it is."

The boat lay sharply defined against the bright, smooth surface of the stream. While Sanine got the oars into position, Sina, balancing herself with outstretched arms, took her place in the stern. All at once the moonlight and the luminous reflections from the water gave a fantastic radiance to her form. Pus.h.i.+ng off the boat from land, Sanine sprang into it. With a slight grating sound the keel slid over the sand and cut the water, as the boat swam into the moonlight, leaving broad ripples in its wake.

"Let me row," said Sina, suddenly endued with strange, overmastering strength. "I love rowing."

"Very well, sit here, then," said Sanine, standing in the middle of the boat.

Again her supple form brushed lightly past him and as, with his finger- tips, she touched his proffered hand, he could glance downwards at her shapely bosom....

Thus they floated down the stream. The moonlight, s.h.i.+ning upon her pale face with its dark eyebrows and gleaming eyes, gave a certain l.u.s.tre to her simple white dress. To Sanine it seemed as if they were entering a land of faerie, far removed from all men, outside the pale of human law and reason.

"What a lovely night!" exclaimed Sina.

"Lovely, isn't it?" replied Sanine in an undertone.

All at once, she burst out laughing.

"I don't know why, but I feel as if I should like to throw my hat into the water, and let down my hair," she said, yielding to a sudden impulse.

"Then do it, by all means," murmured Sanine.

But she grew ill at ease and was silent.

Under the stimulating influence of the calm, sultry, unfathomable night, her thoughts again reverted to her recent experiences. It seemed to her impossible that Sanine should not know of these, and it was just this which made her joy the more intense. Unconsciously she longed to make him aware that she was not always so gentle and modest, but that she could also be something vastly different when she threw off the mask. It was this secret longing that made her flushed and elated.

"You have known Yourii Nicolaijevitsch for a long while, haven't you?"

she asked in a faltering voice, irresistibly impelled to hover above an abyss.

"No," replied Sanine. "Why do you ask?"

"Oh! I merely asked. He's a clever fellow, don't you think?"

Her tone was one of childish timidity, as if she sought to obtain something from a person far older than herself, who had the right to caress or to punish her.

Sanine smiled at her, as he said;

"Ye ... es!"

From his voice Sina knew that he was smiling, and she blushed deeply.

"No ... but, really he is.... Well, he seems to be very unhappy." Her lip quivered.

"Most likely. Unhappy he certainly is. Are you sorry for him?"