Then . . . the miracle happened.  Michael, with the hand that had just taken hers, stroked a petal of this prized vegetable, with no thought in his mind stronger than the thoughts that had been indigenous there since Christmas.  As his finger first touched the rim of the town-bred petals, undersized yet not quite lacking in “rose-quality,” he had intended nothing more than to salute the flower, as Sylvia made her apology for it.  “One has to wash London flowers.”  But as he touched it he looked up at her, and the quiet, usual song of his thoughts towards her grew suddenly loud and stupefyingly sweet.  It was as if from the vacant hive-door the bees swarmed.  In her eyes, as they met his, he thought he saw an expectancy, a welcome, and his hand, instead of stroking the rose-petals, closed on the rose and on the hand that held it, and kept them close imprisoned and strongly gripped.  He could not remember if he had spoken any word, but he had seen that in her face which rendered all speech unnecessary, and, knowing in the bones and the blood of him that he was right, he kissed her.  And then she had said, “Yes, Michael.”

His hand still was tight on hers that held the crumpled rose, and when he opened it, lover-like, to stroke and kiss it, there was a spot of blood in the palm of it, where a rose-thorn had pricked her, just one drop of Sylvia’s blood.  As he kissed it, he had wiped it away with the tip of his tongue between his lips, and she smiling had said, “Oh, Michael, how silly!”

They had sat together on the sofa where this afternoon he sat alone waiting for her.  Every moment of that half hour was as distinct as the outline of trees and hills just before a storm, and yet it was still entirely dream-like.  He knew it had happened, for nothing but the happening of it would account now for the fact of himself; but, though there was nothing in the world so true, there was nothing so incredible.  Yet it was all as clean-cut in his mind as etched lines, and round each line sprang flowers and singing birds.  For a long space there was silence after they had sat down, and then she said, “I think I always loved you, Michael, only I didn’t know it. . . .”  Thereafter, foolish love talk:  he had claimed a superiority there, for he had always loved her and had always known it.  Much time had been wasted owing to her ignorance . . . she ought to have known.  But all the time that existed was theirs now.  In all the world there was no more time than what they had.  The crumpled rose had its petals rehabilitated, the thorn that had pricked her was peeled off.  They wondered if Hermann had come in yet.  Then, by some vague process of locomotion, they found themselves at the piano, and with her arm around his neck Sylvia has whispered half a verse of the song of herself. . . .