He checked himself. This was unworthy of him: unfair to her. He began to talk. But she smiled and came close to him again: she stopped his words with her body. Her eyes fixed on his with a plea that he need not talk. He tried to tell of his love, of his devotion, of his thanks, and she was stiff, impregnable to words. He kissed her, had her body in his hands, and there she was pliant, singing with response. So, soon she lay there under his eyes and he had forgotten to say the things his duty ordered....
At last he made a mighty effort.
He sat beside her on the couch. She was cool and straight beside him. She was like a beach that the tide had left and that the sun had hardened. Golden-smooth. Her breasts lay firm, her thighs rounded and fell like lovely scoopings of summer waves. She was there like a strand of the earth, waiting for the tide to return upon her.
David managed to speak.
“Constance dear,” he began. She laid her hand on his and he clasped it. She seemed suddenly afraid. “Constance, I feel that I have so much that I want to tell you.... Constance, it is only this that I love you with all my heart and soul: that always——” He stopped. There she was stopping him again. She had withdrawn her hand.
“Don’t, David! Don’t!” Her hand on his mouth.
He felt ashamed, ashamed of their nakedness together.
“You mustn’t use that word Love so lightly, David.”
He was all pale inside. He felt that his breast had suddenly caved in and that his heart beat hurtfully against its broken walls.
“I do love you, Constance.”