Thaw might be nearer than you think.
Ten.
The warm steam rises up from their cups of tea in thin spirals.
Elsie watches attentively as they move slowly towards each other and entangle together, before separating and dissolving into the air swiftly.
She focuses on him, while he stirs his tea quietly to avoid looking at her.
Just three days left to the start of the Season. Then he will be gone.
She has behaved cockily in the past few days: she was sure of having won her battle, but she hasn't, not yet.
She fears she will lose her grip on him if he goes away for too long.
He's like a slender reed bent by the forceful wind.
He has slowly transformed from a strong, mighty and proud oak into a humble, flexible cane - she has helped him, coaxing him with her words, reshaping him in a more modest form.
But he persists in his ways. He is forced to bend by a gentle caress of the warm, springy wind, yet he straightens back again, tall, haughty and hostile.
She had started his ablution, had tied a reed around his waist*, yet he continues to sin, arrogantly, stubbornly.
And who is she to judge him, if not a mere sinner herself?
He feels her gaze on himself and he finally raises his head, shyly, tentatively.
She's looking at him lost in her own thoughts. She's pensive, tortures gently her lower lip with her white teeth.
They're both habitual sinners, she thinks.
He is selfish, proud, a coward.
She is easily prone to wrath, over presumptuous - for she has wrongly believed to be his saviour, to be able to cleanse him, when she is dirty herself.
She is eyeing him boldly now: he shivers.
She says quietly she will miss him... he crumbles.
300 words again, hooray.
* = references to Dante's Divine Comedy (Purgatory) which I'm studying now in Italian Literature at school. In the first canto of Purgatory, Cato encourages Dante to cleanse himself from the dirt of Hell. So Virgil washes Dante's face with dew and ties a reed around his waist (it's a simble of humility).
I hope you've liked this chapter, if it is so, please leave a review - they really make my day and keep me going!