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She had a mocking expression as she saw his downcast face. "Myrrha!" he asked, choking, "tell me what you think...." She shrugged her shoulders, smiled, and went on working. He caught her hands and took away the hat at which she was sewing. "Leave off, leave off, and tell me...." She looked squarely at him and waited. She saw that Christophe's lips were trembling.
Ovid narrates the treachery of Scylla or the incestuous passion of Myrrha with the same light and secure touch as he applies to the charming idyl of Baucis and Philemon or the love-tale of Pyramus and Thisbe; his interest is in what happened, in the story for the story's sake.
And yet he hated not to be alone with his beloved: he accused himself of selfishness and proposed that Ernest should come with them. The introduction took place at Ada's door, on the landing. Ernest and Ada bowed politely. Ada came out, followed by her inseparable Myrrha, who when she saw Ernest gave a little cry of surprise.
Never had he been in such high feather: for he was overwhelmed with attentions, and the two women, like good friends as they were, tried each to rob the other of him. Both courted him: Myrrha with ceremonious manners, sly looks, as she rubbed her leg against his under the table Ada, openly making play with her fine eyes, her pretty mouth, and all the seductive resources at her command.
Myrrha accompanied Christophe: she pretended that she was sure that he was right: and she added, "As usual." Christophe had taken the game seriously: and as he never liked to lose, he walked quickly, too quickly for Myrrha's liking, for she was in much less of a hurry than he. "Don't be in a hurry, my friend," she said, in her quiet, ironic voice, "we shall get there first."
There was a catch at his heart. He turned towards her: she did not look at him: she was busy with her work. He went up to her. "Myrrha!" he said. "Eh?" she replied without stopping. He knelt now to look more nearly at her. "Myrrha!" he repeated. "Well?" she asked, raising her eyes from her work and looking at him with a smile. "What is it?"
They waited lying on the rough ground. Myrrha hummed a tune. Christophe took it up for a few phrases. But he stopped every now and then to listen. "I think I can hear them." Myrrha went on singing. "Do stop for a moment." Myrrha stopped. "No. It is nothing." She went on with her song. Christophe could not stay still. "Perhaps they have lost their way." "Lost? They could not.
He used to go to her rooms in the evening. Myrrha would be there, for she lived in the same house. Myrrha was not at all resentful against him: she would hold out her soft hand, caressingly, and talk of trivial and improper things and then dip away discreetly. The two women had never seemed to be such friends as since they had had small reason for being so: they were always together.
That the character of Myrrha was also drawn from life, and that the Guiccioli was the model, I have no doubt.
Mary's reason for the change is not clear. She may have felt and rightly that the allusions to Lelia and to Myrrha were ample foreshadowings. With this speech, which is not in F of F A, Mary begins to develop the character of the Steward, who later accompanies Mathilda on her search for her father.
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