Something — she never knew what — drew her eyes from the moon to the water. She was so placed that the reflection appeared in the basin, at the very edge of the marble, where the water flowed over into the little rivulets that coursed the terrace. There was a tremulous movement, almost like a timid kiss, as the water touched the edge.
And, to the eye of Iliel, it seemed as if the trembling of the moon’s image were a stirring of vitality.
The thought that followed was a mystery. She said that she looked up, as if recalled to her vigil, and found that the moon was no longer in the sky. Nor indeed was there any sky; she was in a grotto whose walls, fantastically draped with stalactites, glimmered a faint purplish blue — very much the effect, she explained, of luminous paint. She looked down
