emory of his hot breath in her face,
of his clumsy fevered embraces was a torment to her; for always in
contrast there were the fresh clean-shaven cheeks and chin of a young
Berserker with honest, wondering blue eyes, the curly head of a child,
and body and limbs like a young lean stag.

Orlando's touch was never either clammy or fevered. She could recall
every time that he had touched her: when her fingers and his met on the
afternoon that Li Choo had thrown himself down the staircase with the
priceless porcelain; also the evening of the night spent on the prairie
when, after the accident, her hand had been linked into his arm; also
when he had clasped her fingers at their meeting in the morning. On each
occasion she had felt a thrill like that of music--persuasive, living
vibrations passing to remote recesses of her being.

No nearer had she ever come to the man she loved, no nearer had he
sought to come. Once, the evening after the night spent on the prairie,
when old Joel Mazarine had tried to make her pray and ask God's
forgiveness, and he had kissed her with the lips of hungry old age,
she had suddenly sat up in bed, her heart beating hard, every nerve
palpitating, because in imagination she had seen herself in Orlando's
arms, with his lips pressed to hers.

Poor neophyte in life's mysteries, having served as a slave at false
altars of which she did not even know the ritual, it was no wonder that,
after all she had suffered, she could not now bring herself into tune
with the commonplace intercourse of life. Not that her friends utterly
failed to lure her into it. She might well have been the victim of
hysterics, but she was only distrait, pensive and gently smiling, with
the smile of a good heart. Smiling with her had ever taken the place
of conversation. It was an apology for not speaking when she could not
speak what she felt.

Once during the meal she seemed to start slightly, as though she heard
a familiar sound, and for some minutes afterwards she seemed to be
listening, as it were, for a knock at the door, which did not come.
Immediately after that, Patsy, happy in sitting down to table with "the
quality"--for such they were to him--because he saw that Louise must
be distracted, and because he had seen story-telling, many a time, draw
people away from their troubles even more than music, said:

"Did you remember the day it is, anny of you? Shure, it's St. Droid's
Day! Aw, then, don't you know who he was