was
beautifully written in the restraint which hung like a veil before his
passion that he would argue only gently with her denial. And at the
sight she knew his whisper, "Ellen, be kind, tell me that you love me,"
was such a call to her courage as the trumpet is to the soldier. She
held up her head, and cried out, "I love you!" but was amazed to find
that she too was whispering.

"Oh, you dear giving thing!" he murmured. "It is such charity of you to
love me!" A tremor ran through his body, his embrace became a gentle
tyranny. He was going to kiss her. But this she could not bear. She
loved to lay her hand on the blue shadowed side of marble, she loved to
see gleaming blocks of ice going through the streets in lorries, she
loved the wind as it blows in the face of the traveller as he breasts
the pass, she loved swift running and all austerity; and she had
confused intimations that this that he wanted to do would in some deep
way make war on these preferences. "Ah, no!" she whimpered. "I have told
you that I love you. Why need you touch me? I can love you without
touching you. Please ... please...."

Oh, if he wanted it he must have it. As she let her head fall back on
her throat it came to her that though she had not known that she had
ever thought of love, although she would have sworn that she had never
thought of anything but getting on, there had been many nights when,
between sleeping and waking, she had dreamed of this moment. It was
going to be (his deep slow breath, gentle with amorousness, assured her)
as she had then prefigured it; romantic as music heard across moonlit
water, as a deep voice speaking Shakespeare, as rich colours spilt on
marble when the sun sets behind cathedral windows; but warm as summer,
soft as the south wind....

But this was pain. How could he call by the name of delight this hard,
interminable, sucking pressure when it sent agony downwards from her
mouth to the furthest cell of her body, changing her bones so that ever
after they would be more brittle, her flesh so that it would be more
subject to bruises! She did not suspect him of cruelty, for his arms
still held her kindly, but her eyes filled with tears at the
strangeness, which she felt would somehow work out to her disadvantage,
of the world where people held wine and kisses to be pleasant things.
Yet when the long kiss came to an end she was glad that he set another
on her lips, for she had heard his deep sigh of delight. Sh