" "Nothing, nothing." She sped back to the window.
At midnight, Despoina should be there. At midnight! In three hours! It was
time to get ready; there wasn't a moment to lose. She watched the night as
if she were listening to it, counting its pulse. Then, kneeling where she
was, she began to unfasten her hair, running her hands through it as each
clinging coil loosened and grew light. So presently she was curtained in
her hair.
It drooped about her burning cheeks and veiled her bosom. She looked like
the Magdalen in the desert, facing, wide-eyed, the preacher. There she
knelt on, in a trance, waiting for the hour.
It struck ten--eleven.
She changed her dress and put on again the blue cotton gown of the day's
wearing--but she left her hair loose about her face and shoulders, and her
feet were bare. She looked at herself in the glass. Her face was white,
her eyes were wide and strange. She did not know herself, smiling so
sharply--like a goddess wild with a rapture not known by men and women.
Fiercer delights than theirs she knew, the joy of power mated with its
equal, coping fellow to fellow. Consciousness of immortal bliss dawned
upon her wise lips, and flickered in their curve.
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