“Am I not here to be instructed?”
“You are beautiful and I love you. You are wonderful and I love you. You are adorable and I love you.”
“How did you learn to become so lyrical?”
Martin knew not. He was embarked on the highest adventure of his life. A super-Martin seemed to speak. Her tone was playful, not ironical. It encouraged him to flights more lyrical still. In the daylight of reason what he said was amazing nonsense. Beneath the Egyptian stars, in the atmosphere drowsy with the scents of the East and the touch of khamsin it sounded to receptive ears beautifully romantic. Through the open door came the strains of an old-fashioned waltz, perhaps meretricious, but in the exotic surroundings sensuous and throbbing with passion. He bent over her and now possessed both hands.
“All that I feel for you, all that you are to me,” he said, concluding his rhapsody. Then, as she made no reply, he asked: “You aren’t angry with me?”
“I’m not a granite sphinx,” she said, in her low voice. “No one has ever said things like that to me before. I don’t say men haven’t tried. They have; but they’ve always made themselves ridiculous. I’ve always wanted to laugh at them.”
Said Martin: “You are not laughing at me?”
“No,” she whispered. And after a long pause: “No, I am not laughing at you.”
She turned her face to him. Her lips were very near. Mortal man could have done neither more nor less than that which Martin did. He kissed her. Then he drew back shaken to the roots of his being. She with closed eyes; he saw the rise and fall of her bosom. The universe, earth and stars and the living bit of the cosmos that was he, hung in breathless suspense. Time stopped. There was no space.
He was holding her beloved hands so delicately and adorably veined: before his eyes, in the dim light, were her lips, slightly parted, which he had just kissed.