warm breast, and put a little kiss upon it, and slept.




CHAPTER XXIII

FIRST HOURS OF THE FLIGHT

Vittoria slept on like an outworn child, while Giacinta nodded over her,
and started, and wondered what embowelled mountain they might be passing
through, so cold was the air and thick the darkness; and wondered more at
the old face of dawn, which appeared to know nothing of her agitation.
But morning was better than night, and she ceased counting over her sins
forward and backward; adding comments on them, excusing some and
admitting the turpitude of others, with 'Oh! I was naughty, padre mio!
I was naughty--she huddled them all into one of memory's spare sacks, and
tied the neck of it, that they should keep safe for her father-confessor.
At such times, after a tumult of the blood, women have tender delight in
one another's beauty. Giacinta doted on the marble cheek, upturned on
her lap, with the black unbound locks slipping across it; the braid of
the coronal of hair loosening; the chance flitting movement of the pearly
little dimple that lay at the edge of the bow of the joined lips, like
the cradling hollow of a dream. At whiles it would twitch; yet the dear
eyelids continued sealed.

Looking at shut eyelids when you love the eyes beneath, is more or less a
teazing mystery that draws down your mouth to kiss them. Their lashes
seem to answer you in some way with infantine provocation; and fine
eyelashes upon a face bent sideways, suggest a kind of internal smiling.