'Why have you come?' she asked, almost querulous.
'I wanted to,' he replied.
And this she could see from his face. It was fate.
'You are so muddy,' she said, in distaste, but gently.
He looked down at his feet.
'I was walking in the dark,' he replied. But he felt vividly elated.
There was a pause. He stood on one side of the tumbled bed, she on the
other. He did not even take his cap from his brows.
'And what do you want of me,' she challenged.
He looked aside, and did not answer. Save for the extreme beauty and
mystic attractiveness of this distinct, strange face, she would have
sent him away. But his face was too wonderful and undiscovered to her.
It fascinated her with the fascination of pure beauty, cast a spell on
her, like nostalgia, an ache.
'What do you want of me?' she repeated in an estranged voice.
He pulled off his cap, in a movement of dream-liberation, and went
across to her. But he could not touch her, because she stood barefoot
in her night-dress, and he was muddy and damp.
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