'But do you?'
'Yes, I do.
I love you, and I know it's final.
It is final, so why say any more about it.'
She was silent for some moments, in delight and doubt.
'Are you sure?' she said, nestling happily near to him.
'Quite sure—so now have done—accept it and have done.'
She was nestled quite close to him.
'Have done with what?' she murmured, happily.
'With bothering,' he said.
She clung nearer to him.
He held her close, and kissed her softly, gently.
It was such peace and heavenly freedom, just to fold her and kiss her gently, and not to have any thoughts or any desires or any will, just to be still with her, to be perfectly still and together, in a peace that was not sleep, but content in bliss.
To be content in bliss, without desire or insistence anywhere, this was heaven: to be together in happy stillness.
For a long time she nestled to him, and he kissed her softly, her hair, her face, her ears, gently, softly, like dew falling.
But this warm breath on her ears disturbed her again, kindled the old destructive fires.
She cleaved to him, and he could feel his blood changing like quicksilver.
'But we'll be still, shall we?' he said.
'Yes,' she said, as if submissively.
And she continued to nestle against him.
But in a little while she drew away and looked at him.
'I must be going home,' she said.
'Must you—how sad,' he replied.
She leaned forward and put up her mouth to be kissed.
'Are you really sad?' she murmured, smiling.
'Yes,' he said, 'I wish we could stay as we were, always.'
'Always!
Do you?' she murmured, as he kissed her.
And then, out of a full throat, she crooned 'Kiss me! Kiss me!'
And she cleaved close to him.
He kissed her many times.
But he too had his idea and his will.
He wanted only gentle communion, no other, no passion now.
So that soon she drew away, put on her hat and went home.
The next day however, he felt wistful and yearning.
He thought he had been wrong, perhaps.
Perhaps he had been wrong to go to her with an idea of what he wanted.
Was it really only an idea, or was it the interpretation of a profound yearning?
If the latter, how was it he was always talking about sensual fulfilment?
The two did not agree very well.
Suddenly he found himself face to face with a situation.
It was as simple as this: fatally simple.
On the one hand, he knew he did not want a further sensual experience—something deeper, darker, than ordinary life could give.
He remembered the African fetishes he had seen at Halliday's so often.
There came back to him one, a statuette about two feet high, a tall, slim, elegant figure from West Africa, in dark wood, glossy and suave.
It was a woman, with hair dressed high, like a melon-shaped dome.
He remembered her vividly: she was one of his soul's intimates.
Her body was long and elegant, her face was crushed tiny like a beetle's, she had rows of round heavy collars, like a column of quoits, on her neck.
He remembered her: her astonishing cultured elegance, her diminished, beetle face, the astounding long elegant body, on short, ugly legs, with such protuberant buttocks, so weighty and unexpected below her slim long loins.
She knew what he himself did not know.