"Oh, don't look at me like that! You frighten me. Your eyes look like the eyes of a wild beast, as if you wanted to tear me limb from limb."
Mirko flushed and his expression changed.
"Silly!" he said, but his voice was hoarse and sounded strange in her ears. "Silly! May I not look at you? Do you know that you are very beautiful to-day? I must fill my eyes with your dear image, so that I may have you with me always,--even when you are far away."
Ragna partially reassured, glanced at him shyly through her lashes.
"You really did frighten me, you looked so fierce, so--so hungry!"
He laughed. "I am hungry--hungry for you. But that is nothing new!"
They relapsed into silence again, but there was a strange constraint upon them. The sun's rays were very hot with that sickly heat felt just before a shower. The scent of the narcissus rose insistent and too sweet. Ragna felt uneasy; although Mirko was outwardly the same as he had always been, she divined a change in him, a mysterious subtle change that set him over against her as an enemy from whom she must defend herself. She could not explain to herself this newborn antagonism, she only felt it dimly,--and at the same time there arose riotous within her the call of the springtide, urging her towards him.
The vetturino drew up jingling before the door of an _osteria_,--that of the "_Sora Nanna_," the sign proclaimed. Some deal tables and benches stood under the budding pergola, and at them a few _contadini_ on their way to the festa were indulging in modest libations of "_vino dei Castelli_"--advertised at thirty, forty and fifty _centesimi_ the measure, on placards hanging at the entrance.
As the _botte_ drew up to the door, the hostess, a stout, wholesome looking woman appeared, bowing and wiping her hands on her apron.
"The Signori would descend? Luncheon? Most certainly,--their Excellencies should be served immediately--Maria! wring the neck of a chicken! Would their Excellencies eat in the common room, in the sala, with contadini? There was a most clean and _conveniente_ chamber above, where they would be much better, _non è vero_?"
She bustled in ahead of them, shooing chickens as she went, and chattering volubly. They followed her through the brick-paved kitchen, gloomy, after the bright light outside. One end of it was taken up by an immense brick stove, in which were sunk numerous wells for charcoal. A large pot bubbled merrily on one of these and most savoury odours arose from a collection of copper stew-pans of all sizes. Hams, salami and bunches of herbs hung from the smoky rafters. A girl with large hoop earrings and a bright kerchief about her neck was sitting on a low stool peeling potatoes and singing lustily the song of the "_Ciociara_"--"_E quando la Ciociara si marita_"--she sang to the rollicking air. A ray of sunlight coming through the window gilded her hair and touched the coral beads on her round brown throat.