“Mildred, know what...?”
“If you said to me: ‘Give me a kiss,’ I would kiss you for I feel like that. If you said to me: ‘Come with me for a week,’ I would say yes, for I think that for a week I could be sure that I would feel that way ... and if I did not, why a week comes to a close. But no man asks me that! No man tries to kiss me. They all say: ‘Mildred, I love you. I shall always love you. I want you for my wife.’ That means forever and ever. You are all so sure. How can I be sure?”
“Will you give me a kiss, Mildred?”
She leaned forward and her lips were faintly parted. My mouth touched hers, and my eyes saw within her gown her perfect breasts like porcelain cups, red-tipped.... She was straight again and smiling. I hid my face in my arms, fighting to master the storm that her cold lips had loosed.
“John ... did my kiss hurt you, then?”
“No, Mildred. But I suffer. You are so perfect and so brave: and you feel nothing.”
“That is not so! I liked your kiss.”
“Mildred, beside the anguish and the joy that I feel, you feel nothing.”
She held my hand in her two palms.
“Tell me what to do.”