Indolently fanning, she extended her fingers. I took them in my hands.
"I am about to begin," I said.
"Begin," she said.
So, her hand resting in mine, I told her that she had robbed the skies and set two stars in violets for her eyes; that nature's one miracle was wrought when in her cheeks roses bloomed beneath the snow; that the frosted gold she called her hair had been spun from December sunbeams, and that her voice was but the melodies stolen from breeze and brook and golden-throated birds.
"For all those pretty words," she said, "love still lies sleeping."
"Perhaps my arm around your waist--"
"Perhaps."
"So?"
"Yes."
And, after a silence: