The next evening he waited in his studio for her, but she did not come. So again the next and the next, and it was a whole week before she knocked at the door. He pulled her in. Neither could speak a word. At last he stammered out:
“I—I haven’t got my drawing things ready.”
“I don’t mind,” she said, and she gave a little shiver.
“Are you cold?” he asked, and he touched her neck.
She threw up her head, seemed to fall towards him, and their lips met.
Thrilling and sweet were the hours they spent, lost in the miracle of desire, finding themselves again, laughing happily, weeping happily, breaking through into the enchanted world, where the few words that either knew had lost their meaning. They were hardly conscious of each other. They knew nothing of each other, and wished to know nothing except the lovely mystery they shared. It was some time before he even knew her name, or where she lived, or what her people were. She existed for him only in the enchantment she brought into his life, in the release from his burden, in the marvellous free life of the body. Royal he felt, like a king, like a master, and she was a willing slave. From home she would steal good things to eat, and she would sit with shining eyes watching him eat; and then she would wait until he had need of her. . . . Strange, silent, happy hours they spent, free together in the dark little room, free as birds in their nest, happy in warm contact, utterly quiescent, utterly oblivious. . . .
Soon their silence became oppressive to them, but neither could break it, so far beyond their years and their childish minds was the experience in which they were joined. When the first ecstasy passed and they became conscious and deliberate in their delight, they had unhappy moments, to escape from which he began to draw her. Into this work poured a strong cool passion altogether new to him, a joy so magnificent that he would forget her altogether. He was tyrannical, and kept her so still that she would almost weep from fatigue and boredom. But he was not satisfied until he had drawn every line of her, and had translated her from the world of the body to the world of vision and the spirit. He knew nothing of that. He was only concerned to draw her as he had drawn the ginger-beer bottle at the Polytechnic. Certain parts of her body—her little budding breasts and her round arms—especially delighted him, and he drew them over and over again. Her head he drew twenty times, and he found a shop in the West End where he could sell every one. And each time he bought her a little present.
She was not satisfied with that. She wanted to display him to her friends. She wanted him to take her to music-halls and to join the parade of boys and girls. He refused. That would be profanation. He and she had nothing to do with the world. He and she were the world. Outside it was only his drawing. He could not see that she was unable to share it. Did he not draw her? Did he dream of drawing anything but her? . . . . To go from that to restaurants, the lascivious pleasantries of the streets, the garish music-halls, was to him unthinkable.
She said he cared more for his drawing than for her, and indeed he would sometimes draw for a couple of hours and then kiss her almost absent-mindedly, just as she was going. He was so happy and satisfied and could not imagine her being anything less, or that she might wish to express in music-halls and “fun” what he expressed in his work.