What she felt in the rushing torrent in her veins was all subsidiary to the overwhelming sense of fulfillment.
He would have lingered there beside that gateway in the bracken, would have dallied with the joy it was to him to feel her whole being in response to his. But Mary had no need of that.
If this was what her mother had meant by concealment of her own sensations, she surely had it then. This was not an hour of dalliance in her life. It was the deep-sounding prelude to the realization of the very spiritual substance of her being.
At her dictation they left that place in the bracken. In response to her wish they turned from the gateway and sought the beaten path through the heather again. In that moment she wanted no more of his kisses; partly perhaps because in her emotions she could have borne no more; but mostly it was that she wanted space and freedom for her thoughts; to speak them to him if need be, certainly to review them in her mind. It was time she demanded--time to touch the wonder that was coming to her, which, from the power of those kisses, she somehow assumed could not be withheld from her now.
"I could not help that," he said almost apologetically when she insisted upon their going on. "Somehow or other--I don't know--honestly, I couldn't help it, and I suppose I've offended you now."
For one instant she turned her eyes upon him with a searching glance.
"Offended?" she repeated. "Didn't you realize that I let you kiss me--not once--but--" Suddenly she realized in a swift vision the Mary Throgmorton that was; the Mary Throgmorton of the square, white Georgian house; the sister of Hannah and Jane and Fanny, and she could not say how many times he had kissed her. Her cheeks flamed.
"Don't talk about offense," said she almost hotly, and walked on with him some time in silence, saying no more, leaving him in an amaze of wondering what her thoughts could be and whether that denial of offense was not merely a screen to hide from him the shame she felt at what had happened.
Was she ashamed? It seemed to him then that she was. That probably was the last time he would touch her lips, yet having touched them and felt, not the eagerness as with Fanny, but the sureness of their response, there had been awakened in him the full consciousness of desire to touch them with his lips again. For now he felt, not master of her, but a servant. At the mere utterance of her command, he must obey. With all his eagerness to stay there longer at that gate there was no power in him of conflict with her wishes when she expressed the desire to go on.
What was it she was thinking as she walked? Did really she hate him for what he had done? The cry her nature had made to his in those moments of the closeness of their bodies had redoubled and redoubled in its intensity. Yet he was less sure of her than he had been before.