“I’m glad she liked me.”
Once again conversation died away, but she seemed content to lie there with her arms in the cool grass. Their round slenderness fascinated him. Her short hair hung over her face, so that he could only see the tip of her chin.
Suddenly he asked her:—
“Do you send flowers to Mitchell?”
“Yes,” she said, and her head was lowered so that the tip of her chin was hidden by her hair.
He said nothing, but he too lay on the grass, flat on his stomach, with his head on his arms. His heart began to thump, and, though he tried to control it, it would not be still. Without raising his head he said, in a choking voice that astonished him:—
“My father fainted for love of my mother. When he heard her name he fainted away.”
She said nothing, only in the long grass her fingers were still. Her white hands in the grass fascinated him, held his eyes transfixed, the green blades coming up through the white fingers that were so still. He stared at them as though they were some strange flower, and for him they had nothing to do with her at all. He drew himself near to them, never taking his eyes off them—white and green, white and green and pink at the finger-tips. He must touch them. They were cool, soft, and firm, soft as the petals of a rose.
He grasped them like a child seizing a pretty toy, but when they were in his grasp he was no longer like a child. A single impulse thrilled through all his body and made it strong even as a giant. With one easy swing of his arm he pulled her to him, held her with a vast tenderness, and held her so, gazing into her face. Her lips parted, and he kissed them. . . .
It was she who first found words:—