She pitched on a little
Sicilian pastorale that the herdsmen play on their pipes coming down
from the hills, softly, from very far, rising, rising, swelling to full
cadence, and failing, failing away again to nothing. The moon rose
over the trees; its light flooded the face of the house, down on to the
grass, and spread slowly back toward where the girl stood waiting. It
caught the border of sunflowers along the garden wall with a stroke of
magical, unearthly colour--gold that was not gold.
Gyp began to play the dance. The pale blurr in the darkness stirred. The
moonlight fell on the girl now, standing with arms spread, holding out
her drapery--a white, winged statue. Then, like a gigantic moth she
fluttered forth, blanched and noiseless flew over the grass, spun and
hovered. The moonlight etched out the shape of her head, painted her
hair with pallid gold. In the silence, with that unearthly gleam of
colour along the sunflowers and on the girl's head, it was as if a
spirit had dropped into the garden and was fluttering to and fro, unable
to get out.
A voice behind Gyp said: "My God! What's this? An angel?"
Fiorsen was standing hall-way in the darkened room staring out into the
garden, where the girl had halted, transfixed before the window, her
eyes as round as saucers, her mouth open, her limbs rigid with interest
and affright. Suddenly she turned and, gathering her garment, fled, her
limbs gleaming in the moonlight.
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