“Oh, but you have, haven’t you? I know you have.”
She began to remonstrate, to say that she had not forgiven him, that he had been most unkind to her, but she made no resistance when his hand slipped slowly round her neck and turned her face to his. And as he raised it, she pouted ever so slightly her lips toward those that sank to meet them. As their mouths met she passed one hand behind his head and pressed it down to her. It was a long embrace, and when she drew back from it, the luster of her eyes had grown dimmed and misty.
“You’ve never kissed me like that before,” she said.
“Perhaps I’ve never really loved you before.”
“Oh, but I should hate to think that.”
“But why?”
“Oh, I don’t know. I’m silly, but if you only love me now, then before—oh, it doesn’t matter, you love me now, don’t you?”
And he answered her in the only possible way.
One hour they had together, an hour of rich enchantment. The blinds were drawn, the lamp unlighted; she sat on the floor with the firelight playing over her, leaned back against him while he told her of Bruges and its waterways, the proud boulevards of Brussels, the great cathedral at Köln, the noble sweep of the Rhine and the hills on either side of it. She followed little of what he said to her; it was enough for her, after three long months, to be soothed by his presence, to hear his voice, to hold his hand in hers, and to feel from time to time his breath grow warm upon her neck and cheek as he bent to kiss her. It was the tenderest hour their love had brought to them.
But for Roland it was followed by a reaction. He felt, in a confused manner, that he had been playing a part, that he had said what was but half true. He had certainly been exasperated by Mrs. Curtis’s conversation, but it was her talk, the supreme futility of her talk, that had exasperated him. It had annoyed him in itself and not as being a barrier between himself and April. He had told a lie.