Then she commenced to ask him questions. “Do you really think that I’ve not got any passion?—If I’d been scarred in that motor-car accident, would you still love me?—Mrs. Theodore Gurney! It does sound funny. I wonder if I’ll ever be called that.”
It was during the descent to the town that she made him say that he was glad she had quarreled with him.
“Well, I do make it up to you afterwards, don’t I? If we hadn’t quarreled, you wouldn’t be doing what you are now. No, you wouldn’t I shouldn’t allow it. And please don’t try to kiss me just here; it’s so joggly. Last time you caught the brim of my hat.”
They had dinner in the courtyard of her hotel, in the sweet, earthy dusk of the rhododendrons. It was like a stage-setting: the canopy of the sky with the stars sailing over them; the golden panes of windows; the shadows of people passing and re-passing; the murmur of voices; the breathless whisper of far-off footsteps. At another table a black-bearded Frenchman sat and watched them.
“I wish he wouldn’t look at us,” Desire said. “I wonder why he does.”
They took a final walk before going to bed. In the courtyard where the bushes grew densest, they parted. When he kissed her, she drooped her face against his shoulder. “Give me your lips.”
She shook her head.
A tone of impatience crept into his voice. “Why not? You’ve done it before. Why not now?”
He tried to turn her lips towards him; she took away his hand.
“I don’t know. I’m odd. I don’t feel like it.”