"You must never leave me again, dearest of all women," he said, and flung his arm about her. "I love you! Give me your lips." He slewed his head round suddenly and his mouth was hard on hers, dragging terrible kisses from it—kisses that shook her through and through as with some strange ague. He felt the trembling of her and laughed with his hand on her heart to still its loud beating.
"'Your mouth is as sweet as bracket,'" he said, quoting some old song that sang in his brain, and kissed her again; then took her hair in his hand and wound it round his throat, holding the long plaits across his face and smelling them as though they were wonderful flowers.
"And I never knew that your hair had this mystic fragrance!... What is it? It is not only sweet, it has some other essence, some fragrance that has a touch of earth in it, and pet, by God! it breathes of Heaven, too!... I think it is a flower that grows upon the eternal hills ... those strange red flowers.... Ah! poppies smell so, I think!... yes, poppies! poppies!... Dearest, if I were stricken blind and deaf in this hour, from ten thousand women I could search you out by this sweet scent of your hair."
He kissed the soft sprays that fell over her eyes. "Speak to me!" he cried down on to her lips. "Speak to me in the voice I love!... O! Ci risuoniamo in cristallo ... wine in a crystal beaker.... I never knew until to-night there was so beautiful a voice in the world!... Speak to me——"
"If I could tear the heart out of my breast," she said, "I would put it into these two hands. I love you! I give you my life."
"God forgive me, I will take it!... I will rob you of all your gifts!"
"I give them to you ... I was born for this hour!" she whispered.
A wave of the great sea that can submerge all the world rushed over them, beat them, drenched them, kissed them, crushed them to its breast; lapped them round, blinded them—flung them quivering and broken on the sands; left them.
He said: "I cannot see your face, darling ... I will never forget this night. There has never been a night like it in all my life, and never will be again."
"I love you! I love you!" her voice cried faintly.