The Torrents Of Spring

XXIV
With hesitating footsteps Sanin approached the house of Signora Roselli.
His heart was beating violently; he distinctly felt, and even heard it
thumping at his side. What should he say to Gemma, how should he begin?
He went into the house, not through the shop, but by the back entrance.
In the little outer room he met Frau Lenore. She was both relieved
and scared at the sight of him.
‘I have been expecting you,’ she said in a whisper, squeezing his hand
with each of hers in turn. ‘Go into the garden; she is there. Mind, I rely
on you!’
Sanin went into the garden.
Gemma was sitting on a garden-seat near the path, she was sorting a
big basket full of cherries, picking out the ripest, and putting them on a
dish. The sun was low – it was seven o’clock in the evening – and there
was more purple than gold in the full slanting light with which it
flooded the whole of Signora Roselli’s little garden. From time to time,
faintly audibly, and as it were deliberately, the leaves rustled, and belated
bees buzzed abruptly as they flew from one flower to the next, and
somewhere a dove was cooing a never-changing, unceasing note.
Gemma had on the same round hat in which she had driven to Soden.
She peeped at Sanin from under its turned-down brim, and again bent
over the basket.
Sanin went up to Gemma, unconsciously making each step shorter,
and … and … and nothing better could he find to say to her than to ask
why was she sorting the cherries.
Gemma was in no haste to reply.
‘These are riper,’ she observed at last, ‘they will go into jam, and those
are for tarts. You know the round sweet tarts we sell?’
As she said those words, Gemma bent her head still lower, and her
right hand with two cherries in her fingers was suspended in the air
between the basket and the dish.
‘May I sit by you?’ asked Sanin.
‘Yes.’ Gemma moved a little along on the seat. Sanin placed himself
beside her. ‘How am I to begin?’ was his thought. But Gemma got him
out of his difficulty.
‘You have fought a duel to-day,’ she began eagerly, and she turned all
her lovely, bashfully flushing face to him – and what depths of gratitude
were shining in those eyes! ‘And you are so calm! I suppose for you
danger does not exist?’
60