“I thought you said she was virginal.”
“So she was—absolutely, frozenly virginal; but she was made of a sort of burning ice, if you understand me. She was virginally passionate—just the combination you’d expect to find in a goddess. I admit I was startled when she kissed me, but with infinite presence of mind I kissed her back, on the mouth. Then the murder was finished and the lights went on again. Nothing much more happened till the end of the show, when I helped her on with her coat and we went out together, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world, and got into a taxi. I told the man to drive somewhere where we could get supper, and he drove there.”
“Not without embracements by the way?”
“No, not without certain embracements.”
“Always passionately virginal?”
“Always virginally passionate.”
“Proceed.”
“Well, we had supper—a positively Olympian affair, nectar and ambrosia and stolen hand-pressures. She became more and more wonderful every moment. My God, you should have seen her eyes! The whole soul seemed to burn in their depths, like fire under the sea——”
“For narrative,” I interrupted him, “the epic or heroic style is altogether more suitable than the lyrical.”
“Well, as I say, we had supper, and after that my memory becomes a sort of burning mist.”