No one to say
A body nay,
And naught but love and leisure!”
Something hotter than tears seemed to flash across Leoline Lewin’s eyeball; the universe stood still, soundless and sightless, then rushed on with clangor, and drowned every sound save the little trivial song which still tinkled so loudly in her stunned soul, ... for Evelyn Gregory had leaned back also, and laid his hand heavily over hers as it rested on the ground, out of sight of every one in the group. During the shock of the first five seconds she thought that he had done so unconsciously, and that the movement had been as natural as her own. She dared not move for fear of making him conscious, and waited for him to remove the heavy pressure that she might slide her own away, and never refer to it.... The seconds went on and on, each that passed accentuating a new beautiful terror and conviction in her mind. He did not move. Human flesh cannot press human flesh and be unconscious for so long. Her blood leapt to the revelation that they were man and woman, and felt, too, the humiliation of knowing that they were not sexless as friends.
“All ye whose hearts are aching
For somebody forsaking,
We’ll hold you dear
And heal you here,
And send you home love-making!”
Gregory removed his hand and sat up, as self-controlled as though he had never moved. An echo down the valley faintly took up the last pure notes and repeated them afar off—