_Yolanda._ Oh, unmistakable; Along the corridor. Go!
_Amaury_ (_at the threshold_). My Yolanda!
[_Hastens down and takes her, passive, in his arms._ BERENGERE _goes._
To touch you is as triumph to the blood, Is as the boon of battle to the strong!
_Yolanda._ Amaury, no; release me and say why You come: The Saracens--?
But of some tribute incense to this beauty, Dear as the wind wafts from undying shrines Of mystery and myrrh! I'd have the eloquence of quickened moons Pouring upon the midnight magicly, To say all I have yearned, Now, with your head pillowed upon my breast! Slow sullen speech, come to my soldier lips, Rough with command, and impotent of softness! Come to my lips! or fill so full my eyes That the unutterable shall seem as sweet To my Yolanda. But ... how, how now? tears?
_Amaury._ What have I done? Too pronely pressed You to this coat of steel?
_Yolanda._ Amaury, no, but sweet, Sweet as the roses of Damascus crusht, Your silence is! and sweeter than the dream Of April nightingale on Troados, Or gushing by the springs of Chitria, Your every word of love! Yet--yet--ah, fold me, Within your arms oblivion and hold me, Fast to your being press me, and there bless me With breathèd power of your manhood's might. Amaury!...
_Yolanda_ (_freeing herself_). Nothing--a folly--groundless frailty.
_Amaury._ You've been again at some old tale of sorrow,
Pining along the pages of a book-- This, telling of that Italy madonna Whose days were sad--I have forgotten how. Is it not so?
_Yolanda._ No, no. The tears of women Come as the air and sighing of the night, We know not whence or why.
_Amaury._ Often, perhaps. I am not skilled to tell. But never these! They are of trouble known.
_Amaury._ It will not leave my heart that somehow--how I cannot fathom--Camarin----
_Yolanda_ (_lightly, to stop him_). No farther!
_Amaury._ That Camarin of Paphos is their cause.-- Tell me----
_Yolanda._ Love thee! As sea the sky! and as the sky the wind! And as the wind the forest! As the forest-- What does the forest love, Amaury? I Can think of nothing!
_Amaury._ Tell me then you have Never a moment of you yielded to him, That never he has touched too long this hand-- Till evermore he must, even as I-- Nor once into your eyes too deep has gazed! You falter? darken?