The figure
was whole and unbroken, of cream-like marble, that made soft living
shadows in each dimple and hollow and seemed to quiver along the lines
of beauty, the shoulder just edging forwards, the bent arm, the
marvellous sweep of the limbs from hip to heel.
"It is a Venus, is it not?" asked Sabina with an odd little timidity.
"Aphrodite," answered Malipieri, almost unconsciously.
It was not the plump, thick-ankled, doubtfully decent Venus which the
late Greeks made for their Roman masters; it was not that at all. It
was their own Aphrodite, delicate, tender and deadly as the foam of
the sea whence she came to them.
Sabina would scarcely have wondered if she had turned and smiled,
there on the ground, to brush the shadows of ages from her opening
eyes, and to say "I must have slept," like a woman waked by her lover
from a dream of kisses. That would have seemed natural.
Malipieri felt that he was holding his breath. Sabina was so close to
him that it was as if he could feel her heart beating near his own,
and as fast; and for a moment he felt one of those strong impulses
which strong men know when to resist, but to resist which is like
wrestling against iron hands. He longed, as he had never longed for
anything in his life, to draw her yet closer to him and to press his
lips hard upon hers, without a word.
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