Page:Psyche (1908).djvu/111

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jet eyes leered. Psyche moved in her sleep. Then the pipe sounded again, and Psyche opened her eyes. Astonished, she listened to the notes of the pipe, as they rose and fell so as she had never heard before, lively and wanton, quick and playful. She sat up, leant on her arm, and looked. . . .

She started. There, on the horizon, like a dark sun, she saw the brown face and the lips in the curly beard blowing the reeds, short and long. Psyche started and looked on trembling. Then the pipe stopped again, and roguishly the head nodded to her. Psyche was frightened; she woke the boys. She fled away. From the palace Eros came to meet her.

At first she meant to speak, but he kissed her; and why, she did not know, but she spoke not. Then she made up her mind to tell Eros that night, but in her husband’s arms she lacked the courage to speak. She did not tell him. The next morning she resolved not to repose again in the moss by the brook. But that afternoon she played with the cupids, and tired, fell asleep in the same place. The pipe awoke her; on the horizon, the brown face stood out against the sun, and roguishly nodded to her.