“We were children then, we didn’t know about the moon. We had to go to bed too early.”
“The old swing’s gone.” (This was Mr. Martin’s voice.)
“Why ... how did you know? Yes, that’s where it was, that beam....”
I thought that lunatic had been here before, George said to himself. He seems to know his way about.
He started the motor again. He thought he had noticed a faint roughness in its turning. He listened attentively, marvelling at the strong, hurrying fidelity of those airy explosions. I know why this car has kept her youth, he thought. She hasn’t had any proper care, but she’s been loved. A soft throbby purring, with a sweet quavering rhythm; the sound of sliding, of revolving, of vapour evenly expelled. It was a consoling, normal kind of sound; complete in itself; it shut out the voices upstairs. A touch on the throttle and it rose to a growl of unused power, a shout of fierce unquestioning assent, not much different from defiance. The old barn rang. It was as if an officer of some colonial regiment called on his legions for a fatal exploit, and heard in their answering yell a voice of savagery that might turn against himself.
He switched the key; the sound slid off into a soft conclusive sigh. There was an almost human breath of frustration in it. He closed the hood, his mind too vague for thinking, and saw Joyce standing there.
“I thought Mr. and Mrs. Brook would like a moment of privacy,” she whispered.
He had her in his arms. On her soft lips was all the bittersweet of their long separation, of their mirth together, of their absurd and precious passion, denied by men and ratified by crickets. It was the perfect embrace of those who are no longer children, who can sweeten the impossible by mocking it a little. The tingling triumph of social farce, undreamed by poor candid Nature—the first illicit kiss!
“I suppose,” she said tremulously, “that this really is what they call a Guilty Passion.”
“My dear, my dear. What a queer world, where one has to apologize for loving people.”