Whosoever Shall Offend | Page 9

at Aurora's graceful figure, a hundred yards ahead, and for one instant he drew his eyelids together with a very strange expression. He knew that the Contessa could not see his face.
Marcello and Aurora had been companions since they were children, and just now they were talking familiarly of the place, which they had not seen since the previous year. All sorts of details struck them. Here, there was more sand than usual; there, a large piece of timber had been washed ashore in the winter gales; at another place there was a new sand-drift that had quite buried the scrub on the top of the bank; the keeper of the San Lorenzo tower had painted his shutters brown, though they had always been green; here was the spot where Aurora had tumbled off her pony when she was only twelve years old--so long ago! And here--they looked at each other and then quickly at the sea, for it was here that Marcello, in a fit of boyish admiration, had once suddenly kissed her cheek, telling her that she was perfectly beautiful. Even now, he blushed when he thought of it, and yet he longed to do it again, and wondered inwardly what would happen if he did.
As for Aurora, though she looked at the sea for a moment, she seemed quite self-possessed. It is a strange thing that if a boy and a girl are brought up in just the same way, by women, and without many companions, the boy should generally be by far the more shy of the two when childhood is just past.
"You are very fond of your stepfather, are you not?" asked Aurora, so suddenly that Marcello started a little and hesitated slightly before he answered.
"Yes," he said, almost directly, "of course I am! Don't you like him, too?"
"I used to," answered Aurora in a low voice, "but now his eyes frighten me--sometimes. For instance, though he is a good way behind, I am sure he is looking at me now, just in that way."
Marcello turned his head instinctively, and saw that Folco had just dismounted to tighten the girth of the Contessa's saddle. It was exactly while Aurora was speaking that he had drawn his eyelids together with such a strange expression--a mere coincidence, no doubt, but one that would have startled the girl if she could have suddenly seen his face.
They rode on without waiting for the others, at an even canter over the sand.
"I never saw anything in Folco's eyes that could frighten anybody," Marcello said presently.
"No," answered Aurora. "Very likely not."
Marcello had always called Corbario by his first name, and as he grew up it seemed more and more natural to do so. Folco was so young, and he looked even younger than he was.
"It must be your imagination," Marcello said.
"Women," said Aurora, as if she were as near thirty as any young woman would acknowledge herself, "women have no imagination. That is why we have so much sense," she added thoughtfully.
Marcello was so completely puzzled by this extraordinary statement that he could find nothing to say for a few moments. Then he felt that she had attacked his idol, and that Folco must be defended.
"If you could find a single thing, however small, to bring against him, it would not be so silly to say that his eyes frighten you."
"There!" laughed Aurora. "You might as well say that because at this moment there is only that one little cloud near the sun, there is no cloud at all!"
"How ridiculous!" Marcello expressed his contempt of such girlish reasoning by putting his rough little horse to a gallop.
"Men always say that," retorted Aurora, with exasperating calm. "I'll race you to the tower for the first choice of oranges at dessert. They are not very good this year, you know, and you like them."
"Don't be silly!" Marcello immediately reined his horse back to a walk, and looked very dignified.
"It is impossible to please you," observed Aurora, slackening her pace at once.
"It is impossible, if you abuse Folco."
"I am sure I did not mean to abuse him," Aurora answered meekly. "I never abuse anybody."
"Women never do, I suppose," retorted Marcello, with a little snort of dissatisfaction.
They were little more than children yet, and for pretty nearly five minutes neither spoke a word, as their horses walked side by side.
"The keeper of the tower has more chickens this year," observed Aurora. "I can see them running about."
This remark was evidently intended as an overture of reconciliation. It acted like magic upon Marcello, who hated quarrelling, and was moreover much more in love with the girl than he knew. Instinctively he put out his left hand to take her right. They always made peace by taking hands.
But Aurora's did not move, and she did not even