She didn't understand what he was saying, not a word of it, and yet the tone of his deep and crooning voice revived the vision of vines in her mind, of grapes and growing things in a soft, damp, and fecund earth... A vision that blossom abruptly on the unfurling of ache into a bed of hot, dull pain upon his stroking fingertip, and she surged back against him even under the press of his broad hand upon her pale back, searching for the sweet wamrth of pressure that had been thereby supplanted. Forced to look at him, her icy eyes were softened by the strange, secret power that idled still within her, giving her a false and unaccustomed look of being lost within the workings of her body; a look that was almost yearning, was nearly desire.