“It was a perfect day, really,” she said. “Very hot, and just before lunch, do you remember? But there, again, it is the imagery of it as it seemed to our inner selves. It comes to one, and one is the instrument.”
Bill's voice was hoarse. “Margaret, come down to me,” he said.
“I dare not.”
“You must. I must touch you—kiss you. You must come down!”
“Bill, I dare not; I should be heard.”
He bitted his next words as they came galloping up. Dare he give them rein? And then again he bathed in the ecstasy of the scene. The black square of the open window; the scented roses that framed it; the silver night that lit its picture—her dusky face between her streaming hair, her white arms, bare to where the pushed-back sleeves gave them to the soft breeze to kiss, the soft outline of her breast where the press of her weight drew close her gown.
It was not to be borne. The bitted words lashed from his hold. He gasped:
“Then I am coming up!”
Was she aghast at him? he asked himself. He stood half-checked while her steady eyes left his face, roamed from him—contrasting, as ashamed he felt, the purity of the still night with the clamour of his turbulent passions—and settled on an adjacent flowerbed.
At last she spoke, very calmly.