She nodded. Pause.
Then he broke out: “You know, really, I’m most awfully sorry——”
“Oh, don’t bother about that,” she said lightly. “It wasn’t your fault. You couldn’t help it.”
(Yet she knew it was his fault, and that he could have helped it. She also knew that he had no licence.)
And then a strange thing happened.
They were in the shadow of a doorway. He suddenly put his two arms on her shoulders and kissed her passionately on the lips. Her hair was blowing behind her like a trail of flame. He kissed her again with deepening intensity. And then her face, upturned to his, dropped convulsively forward. Her eyes were closed with a great mist, and her hair fell over his hands and hid them from view. There was something terrible in the fierceness with which he bent down and, because he could not kiss her face, kissed her fire-burnished hair. And as he did so again and again she began to cry very softly. His hands could feel the sobs which shook her frame. And he was thrilled, electrified....
“My God!” he whispered....
... Then with a quick movement she drew back. The tears in her eyes were shining like pearls, and her face was white—quite white. Passion was in every limb of her.
“That’s enough,” she said almost curtly, but it was all that she could trust herself to say. For she was overwhelmed, swept out of her depth by this sudden tide.
And all the way to Liverpool Street, with George sitting in the corner opposite to her, her mind and soul were running mad riot....