She was looking with half-shut eyes into her self. Her lips were half shut. All of her. He kissed her again. Experimentally: he was trying to find a certain thing. His hands held the warm stillness of her body: against his hard breathing he had hidden softness. He kissed her. Then, he put her away. His heart raced; his blood panted after a sudden hunger and she sat there smiling. Nothing had happened.
He looked to where she was through a swirl of sense. What should he do? What should he say? How was it possible that she should love him so quick? that he had not known before this marvel of loving her?
He took her hand and kissed its open palm. It was cool. His hand ran up the naked flesh of her arm, thirsting, clamoring. Then, he dropped it and stood up.
He turned his back on her. He paced the little room. Once, twice: over and over. He stopped. He looked at her now as if he had never looked at her before. He was a little way from her. An abyss, an eternity of way which magic alone could empower him to pass.
Was he not friends with magic? Something spoke in him:
“You have only to step forward and take her.” He could not believe it. He had never touched her. Magic, magic....
She was a little huddled on the couch. A faint flush on her cheek and her brow. Her hands half clasped on her lap. Her sharp shoulders rounded forward. She was magical and helpless. David was strong against her. A pity came to him that she was so sweet and so resistless beneath his towering brutality. It was the pity that was sweet and was resistless. Feeling aggrieved for her that she sat there prostrate, he felt that he forgave her, that he loved her, and how by this love she must at once be saved. It was needful to go forth and hold her for her own sake. Lest she believe he had sullied her, lest she fear he did not know what this was between them. To herself as to him it was needful that what had come to pass be good.
He no longer saw her. He was full of the wonder of her sweetness and of his pity. He was full of the wonder of that she was a woman and given up to him. He drew all of her against him....
He knew he was walking homeward. The familiar streets whipped past, the world swung like a sea over the horizon and swept backward above his head. He walked because it had been impossible to sit cramped and still in a car. He had to race with his emotions, else something had broken in him. Calmer he said to himself:
“Why go home? You’re not sleepy.”