He took her other hand in the same way. He was facing her, and he held his hands against his heart with hers in them, then pressed her hands against her heart, then drew them back again to his.
“Then let us realise it. Let us forget our prison. Let us forget everything, everything that we ever knew before Beni-Mora, Domini. It’s dead, absolutely dead, unless we make it live by thinking. And that’s mad, crazy. Thought’s the great madness. Domini, have you forgotten everything before we knew each other?”
“Yes,” she said. “Now—but only now. You’ve made me forget it all.”
There was a deep breathing under her voice. He held up her hands to his shoulders and looked closely into her eyes, as if he were trying to send all himself into her through those doors of the soul opened to seeing him. And now, in this moment, she felt that her fierce desire was realised, that he was rising above her on eagle’s wings. And as on the night before the wedding she had blessed all the sorrows of her life, now she blessed silently all the long silence of Androvsky, all his strange reticence, his uncouthness, his avoidance of her in the beginning of their acquaintance. That which had made her pain by being, now made her joy by having been and being no more. The hidden man was rushing forth to her at last in his love. She seemed to hear in the night the crash of a great obstacle, and the voice of the flood of waters that had broken it down at length and were escaping into liberty. His silence of the past now made his speech intensely beautiful and wonderful to her. She wanted to hear the waters more intensely, more intensely.
“Speak to me,” she said. “You’ve spoken so little. Do you know how little? Tell me all you are. Till now I’ve only felt all you are. And that’s so much, but not enough for a woman—not enough. I’ve taken you, but now—give me all I’ve taken. Give—keep on giving and giving. From to-night to receive will be my life. Long ago I’ve given all I had to you. Give to me, give me everything. You know I’ve given all.”
“All?” he said, and there was a throb in his deep voice, as if some intense feeling rose from the depths of him and shook it.
“Yes, all,” she whispered. “Already—and long ago—that day in the garden. When I—when I put my hands against your forehead—do you remember? I gave you all, for ever.”
And as she spoke she bent down her face with a sort of proud submission and put her forehead against his heart.
The purity in her voice and in her quiet, simple action dazzled him like a flame shining suddenly in his eyes out of blackness. And he, too, in that moment saw far up above him the beating of an eagle’s wings. To each one the other seemed to be on high, and as both looked up that was their true marriage.
“I felt it,” he said, touching her hair with his lips. “I felt it in your hands. When you touched me that day it was as if you were giving me the world and the stars. It frightened me to receive so much. I felt as if I had no place to put my gift in.”