"Stupid.  .  .  ."  He  could  not  read  the  half-closed  eyes;
he  had  to  lean  closer  to  make  out  the  words.  "Is  that
all.  .  .  .  ?  Must  I  ask  you.  .  .  .  ?"

His  lips  touched  hers,  closed  upon  them,  clung  there.
A  giddy  faintness  came  with  the  long-withheld  ardor;
his  eyes  shut  out  sight,  the  other  senses  ceased  for  the
moment — the  frantic  remnant  of  his  will  and  conscious-
ness seeking  to  make  the  moment  perpetual.  His  own
being  seemed  to  flow  out  and  into  the  other,  he  seemed
to  absorb  from  the  vital  contact  all  of  the  inestimable
dearness  that  she  meant  to  him.  This  consummation,
devoutly  unwished  for  so  long,  was  for  that  reason  in
its  realization  doubly  dear;  it  brought  an  ecstasy  so
brimming  that  for  the  time  no  other  sensation  found
space  to  obtrude.
Too  soon,  to  his  heart,  the  ecstatic  eternity  ended.
Suddenly  ashamed  of  her  daring  in  permitting  the  tardy
rapture,  not  to  think  of  inviting  it,  Jane  drew  back,  re-
leasing her  tingling  lips  into  a  prim  pucker  of  uncertainty.
He  sought  her  a  second  time,  quickened  to  an  arrogant
sense  of  ownership  of  intangible  wonders.  Her  protest
reached  him:  "We  shouldn't,  Pelham  dear.  .  .  ."

She  found  her  lips  too  busied  to  frame  more  negative
commandments,  despite  her  unevenly  ebbing  struggles
of  protest.
