She got up and redisposed herself on the couch. Her act was at once, in its motion, an expenditure of force and, in its specific nature, preparation for future outlet. David already found in himself the wish to go and sit beside her. The fear, lest it be the false thing to do--lest she dislike it, rebuke him, misunderstand. Misunderstand what? David did not know, because he found that he did not care. He sat there now, measuring his wish to sit beside her with what was in her eyes--to find if it fitted. They chatted. David knew less and less what he was saying, as he grew more engrossed in the problem of his desire. Did he dare go and sit beside her? He found no answer in her. Her look, like what she said, was oblique and opaque. She seemed impenetrable to his seeking mind, but in inverse ratio she seemed vulnerable to his fleeing senses. His mental will to measure the effect of his coming to her faded from inanition: his desire to come was less dependent on intellectual assurance. He was unconscious of all this. Until, quiet and quick, he was up from his chair in a silence and beside her. Nothing had happened. He was dumb and he was empty, as if this coming close had been a mere beginning after all of what he was about: as if he were still upon his journey. Nothing had happened. David leaned over to her face that was at profile from him. At once she turned to him. She gave him her lips. Nothing happened. He kissed her. He sat beside her silent. The sense persisting of a way half gone, of a will half done. He felt the sharp power of her body under a frail gown. Nothing had happened at all. So he took her in his arms. She was looking with half-shut eyes into her self. Her lips were half shut. All of her. He kissed her again. Experimentally: he was trying to find a certain thing. His hands held the warm stillness of her body: against his hard breathing he had hidden softness. He kissed her. Then, he put her away. His heart raced; his blood panted after a sudden hunger and she sat there smiling. Nothing had happened. He looked to where she was through a swirl of sense. What should he do? What should he say? How was it possible that she should love him so quick? that he had not known before this marvel of loving her? He took her hand and kissed its open palm. It was cool. His hand ran up the naked flesh of her arm, thirsting, clamoring. Then, he dropped it and stood up. He turned his back on her. He paced the little room. Once, twice: over and over. He stopped. He looked at her now as if he had never looked at her before. He was a little way from her. An abyss, an eternity of way which magic alone could empower him to pass. Was he not friends with magic? Something spoke in him: “You have only to step forward and take her.” He could not believe it. He had never touched her. Magic, magic....