‘This is nothing to do with anything, Catherine,’ he explained, as she made a movement of resistance, ‘except a determination not to let you die of cold. Besides, it will keep me warm too—which I daresay I wouldn’t be, towards the small hours of the morning, if I kept myself to myself.’
‘The morning?’ she echoed in a very small voice. ‘Are we—do you think we shall be here all night?’
‘It looks like it,’ he said.
‘Oh, Christopher——’
‘I know.’
She said no more, and he held her and her coat and the rug tightly in his arms. As a mother holds her babe, so did Christopher hold Catherine, and with much the same sort of passionate protective tenderness. One arm was beneath her shoulders, so that her head rested on his breast, the other was round her body, keeping her coverings close round her. His own head was on the cushion from the side-car, and his cheek leaned against her soft motoring cap.
Like this they lay in silence, and what Catherine felt was, first, amazement that she should be there, on an unknown hillside in a lonely country at night with Christopher, forced by circumstances to get as close to him as possible; and secondly, as she became warmer and drowsier, and nature accordingly prevailed over convention, a queer satisfaction and peace. And what Christopher felt, as he lay leaning his cheek against her head and gazing up at the stars, was that he had never seen anything more beautiful than the way those blessed stars seemed to understand—twinkling and flashing down at them as if they were laughing for joy at the amount of happiness that was flung about the world. His precious little love—his precious, precious little love....
‘Of course—you know—’ murmured Catherine, on the verge of sleep, ‘this is only—a kind of—precautionary measure——’
‘Quite,’ whispered Christopher, holding the rug closer round her.
But sleep is a great loosener of the moral sense. How is one to know right from wrong if one is asleep? How can one, in that state, be expected to be responsible? Catherine slept, and Christopher kissed her. Dimly through her dreams she knew she was being kissed, but it was so gentle a kissing, so tender, it made her feel so safe ... and up there there was no one to mind, no one to criticise ... and yesterday was infinitely far away ... and to-morrow might never come....