since it 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.  She would always let him kiss her as much as he liked, although she could not quite see what pleasure he found in it.  Yet, could she not?  Of course it was beautiful to be held close by Richard Yaverland!  His substance was so dear, that his very warmth excited her tenderness and the rhythm of his breathing made wetness dwell about her lashes; it was most foolish that she should feel about this great oak-strong man as if he were a little helpless thing that could lie in the crook of her arm, like an ailing puppy; or perhaps a baby.