“Don’t make it harder, dearest thought—you are thought of my thought——”
Cosimo sat still.
“Must that be all, Amory?”
“Is it so little? Oh, you don’t know! Have you forgotten what I told you about the Antinöus? You are all that to me!”
“Then——” Cosimo supplicated, his arms outstretched; but Amory turned away her head.
“Ah no! You mean I kissed the Antinöus. But I daren’t kiss you, my Shropshire Lad; I might fail utterly. And it would be no good your trying to kiss me; you’d hold my corporeal part for a moment, but think of all you’d lose! Would it be worth while, Cosimo?” She smiled, benign as a star, down on him. “Would it?”
How could he say Yes? How, on the other hand, could he say No? He was between the highest she had ever taught him, and that common, blissful lethargy of the huddle on the neighbouring seat. Thus two Principles run through that multicoloured pattern of the world’s web. It is a Law. Cosimo saw that it was a Law. He also saw that it was a hard one.
Suddenly he did the most sensible thing he could have done. He rose.
“Well, I’ll walk along with you as far as your place,” he said wearily. “I suppose I may do that?”