of a blunt and jagged knife, though it was gone almost before she knew where she had felt it. Then her eyes flashed with unlike fires, the one dark and passionate as the light of a black diamond, the other keen and daring as the gleam of blue steel in the sun.
“Ah, but I will!” she exclaimed. “And what I will—shall be.”
As though she were satisfied with the promise thus made to herself, she smiled, her eyelids drooped, the tension of her frame was relaxed, and she sank again into the indolent attitude in which the Wanderer had found her. A moment later the distant door turned softly upon its hinges and a light footfall broke the stillness. There was no need for Unorna to speak in order that the sound of her voice might guide the new comer to her retreat. The footsteps approached swiftly and surely. A young man of singular beauty came out of the green shadows and stood beside the chair in the open space.
Unorna betrayed no surprise as she looked up into her visitor’s face. She knew it well. In form and feature the youth represented the noblest type of the Jewish race. It was impossible to see him without thinking of a young eagle of the mountains, eager, swift, sure, instinct with elasticity, far-sighted and untiring, strong to grasp and to hold, beautiful with the glossy and unruffled beauty of a plumage continually smoothed in the sweep and the rush of high, bright air.
Israel Kafka stood still, gazing down upon the woman he loved, and drawing his breath hard between his parted lips. His piercing eyes devoured every detail of the sight before him, while the dark blood rose in his lean olive cheek, and the veins of his temples swelled with the beating of his quickened pulse.
“Well?”
The single indifferent word received the value of a longer speech from the tone in which it was uttered, and from the look and gesture which accompanied it. Unorna’s voice was gentle, soft, half-indolent, half-caressing, half-expectant, and half-careless. There was something almost insolent in its assumption of superiority, which was borne out by the little defiant tapping of two long white fingers upon the arm of the carved chair. And yet, with the rising inflection of the monosyllable there went a raising of the brows, a sidelong glance of the eyes, a slowly wreathing smile that curved the fresh lips just enough to unmask two perfect teeth, all of which lent to the voice a meaning, a familiarity, a pliant possibility of favourable interpretation, fit rather to flatter a hope than to chill a passion.
The blood beat more fiercely in the young man’s veins, his black eyes gleamed yet more brightly, his pale, high-curved nostrils quivered at every breath he drew. The throbbings of his heart unseated his thoughts and strongly took possession of the government of his body. Under an irresistible impulse he fell upon his knees beside Unorna, covering her marble hand with all his lean, dark fingers and pressing his forehead upon them, as though he had found and grasped all that could be dear to him in life.
“Unorna! My golden Unorna!” he cried, as he knelt.
Unorna looked down upon his bent head. The smile faded from her face, and for a moment a look of hardness lingered there, which gave way to an expression of pain and regret. As though collecting her thoughts she closed her eyes, as she tried to draw back her hand; then as he held it still, she leaned back and spoke to him.
“You have not understood me,” she said, as quietly as she could.
The strong fingers were not lifted from hers, but the white face, now bloodless and transparent, was raised to hers, and a look of such fear as she had never dreamed of was in the wide black eyes.
“Not—understood?” he repeated in startled, broken tones.
Unorna sighed, and turned away, for the sight hurt her and accused her.
“No, you have not understood. Is it my fault? Israel Kafka, that hand is not yours to hold.”
“Not mine? Unorna!” Yet he could not quite believe what she said.
“I am in earnest,” she answered, not without a lingering tenderness in the intonation. “Do you think I am jesting with you, or with myself?”
Neither of the two stirred during the silence which followed. Unorna sat quite still, staring fixedly into the green shadows of the foliage, as though not daring to meet the gaze she felt upon her. Israel Kafka still knelt beside her, motionless and hardly breathing, like a dangerous wild animal startled by an unexpected enemy, and momentarily paralysed in the very act of springing, whether backward in flight, or forward in the teeth of the foe, it is not possible to guess.
“I have been mistaken,” Unorna continued at last. “Forgive—forget—”
Israel Kafka rose to his feet and drew back a step from her side. All his movements were smooth and graceful. The perfect man is most beautiful in motion, the perfect woman in repose.
“How easy it is for you!” exclaimed the Moravian. “How easy! How simple! You call me, and I come. You let your eyes rest on me, and I kneel before you. You sigh, and I speak words of love. You lift your hand and I crouch at your feet. You frown—and I humbly leave you. How easy!”
“You are wrong, and you speak foolishly. You are angry, and you do not weigh your words.”
“Angry! What have I to do with so common a madness as anger? I am more than angry. Do you think that because I have submitted to the veering gusts of your good and evil humours these many months, I have lost all consciousness of myself? Do you think that you can blow upon me as upon a feather, from east and west, from north and south, hotly or coldly, as your unstable nature moves you? Have you promised me nothing? Have you given me no hope? Have you said and done nothing whereby you are bound? Or can no pledge bind you, no promise find a foothold in your slippery memory, no word of yours have meaning for those who hear it?”
“I never gave you either pledge or promise,” answered Unorna in a harder tone. “The only hope I have ever extended to you was this, that I would one day answer you plainly. I have done so. You are not satisfied. Is there anything more to be said? I do not bid you leave my house for ever, any more than I mean to drive you from my friendship.”
“From your friendship! Ah, I thank you, Unorna; I most humbly thank you! For the mercy you extend in allowing me to linger near you, I am grateful! Your friend, you say? Ay, truly, your friend and servant, your servant and your slave, your slave and your dog. Is the friend impatient and dissatisfied with his lot? A soft word shall turn away his anger. Is the servant over-presumptuous? Your scorn will soon teach him his duty. Is the slave disobedient? Blows will cure him of his faults. Does your dog fawn upon you too familiarly? Thrust him from you with your foot and he will cringe and cower till you smile again. Your friendship—I have no words for thanks!”
“Take it, or take it not—as you will.” Unorna glanced at his angry face and quickly looked away.
“Take it? Yes, and more too, whether you will give it or not,” answered Israel Kafka, moving nearer to her. “Yes. Whether you will, or whether you will not, I have all, your friendship, your love, your life, your breath, your soul—all, or nothing!”
“You are wise to suggest the latter alternative as a possibility,” said Unorna coldly and not heeding his approach.
The young man stood still, and folded his arms. The colour had returned to his face and a deep flush was rising under his olive skin.
“Do you mean what you say?” he asked slowly. “Do you mean that I shall not have all, but nothing? Do you still dare to mean that, after all that has passed between you and me?”
Unorna
