Michael’s heart leaped at the thought that soon he would be able to see her in her own home among her own belongings, so that in future no conjured picture of her would be incomplete.
“Rather decent of your mother,” he said.
“Oh, well, she’s got to be very easy-going and all that, though of course she doesn’t like us to get talked about. What shall we do now?”
“Walk about, I suppose,” said Michael. “Unless we get on top of a bus and ride somewhere? Why not ride up to Hammersmith Broadway and then walk along the towing-path?”
They found a seat full in the frore wind’s face, but yet the ride was all too short, and almost by the time Michael had finished securing the waterproof rug in which they sat incapable of movement, so tightly were they braced in, it was time to undo it again and dismount. While the church bells were ringing, they crossed Hammersmith Suspension Bridge ethereal in the creeping river-mist and faintly motionable like a ship at anchor. Then they wandered by the river that lapped the dead reeds and gurgled along the base of the shelving clay bank. The wind drearily stirred the osier-beds, and from time to time the dull tread of indefinite passing forms was heard upon the sodden path. Michael could feel the humid fog lying upon Lily’s sleeve, and when he drew her cheek to his own it was bedewed with the falling night. But when their lips met, the moisture and October chill were all consumed, and like a burning rose she flamed upon his vision. Words to express his adoration tumbled around him like nightmare speech, evasive, mocking, grotesquely inadequate.
“There are no words to say how much I love to hold you, Lily,” he complained. “It’s like holding a flower. And even in the dark I can see your eyes.”
“I can’t see yours,” she murmured, and therefore nestled closer, “I like you to kiss me,” she sighed.
“Oh, why do you?” Michael asked. “Why me?”
“You’re nice,” she less than whispered.
“Lily, I do love you.”