She hugged him close then, and her lips sought his to end this, and to say without words that this commerce of theirs was a pleasure for its own sake and might be brought to destruction by any talk of a deeper relation—or so he reasoned out her action, that night, as he lay in the hour between waking and sleep. The pleasure of it was so sweet that he dared do nothing to change the pattern; though when she tried to tell him of the strange religion of the Prophet, he would change the conversation to the mystery of their mutual attraction—in the midst of which a vertigo of kissing and clasping would come upon them and there would be silence for a long time. The door was always closed now; sometimes the footsteps of Dame Gualdis could be heard outside, but after the first time, when Leece slipped from the bed in panic, they paid no attention, for the mother neither knocked nor entered. Only when the steps sounded, Leece would gently hold his hand to make him cease fondling her breasts, which she now allowed him freely to do at all times, lying with dark lashes on her cheek and lips half parted. She would not let him go further than this, nor did the cold Blue Star speak of any willingness to do so. When once, with senses reeling, he would have pressed the matter on, she said no, someone might come, there was no time, and made other excuses, though she kissed him as she said it, and caressed him with curious fingers. Yet it had become part of an unspoken agreement between them that he should ask for no more, only kiss her and be as bold as she permitted; and it was she who ultimately brought the matter into words. “If we were married, you could have me whenever you wished.” She said it half regretfully (and he did look this time, catching behind her eyes something like a color, something that spoke of a desire in her, though somehow not of the same kind as his own). By the convention into which they had fallen, he must now clasp her eagerly and say, “Ah, Leece,” and kiss her for a long time, before saying; “Yet if we did marry, and the mixture proved imperfect, consider how we might hate each other.” “I like to kiss you,” she said simply. “Vyana cried last night. She saw him in the afternoon, and does not know what to do.” “Feel my heart beat,” he said, placing her hand over it. “It would seem to me that she and her lover are really meant for a perfect union. Could she not enter the Myonessae and be chosen and persuade him to marriage afterward?” The girl went stiff in his arms, looking at him with eyes wide in astonishment. “Why,” she cried, “that would be deception and sin—leading him from the service of the God of love to Evil. Oh, Rodvard, never say such things.”