It never occurred to me to wonder how she knew. I suppose I ought to
have wondered this, but I gave it no thought. Instead, I was wondering
why I had never noticed before what her eyes were like--why, indeed, I
had thought them to be quite different. Had you asked me that morning
what Louie Causton's eyes were like I should first have rummaged in my
memory for who Louie Causton was, then have dismissed them as ordinary
and a sort of grey, and so have missed a wonder. Grey? Yes, they were
grey, but that is not saying anything. And perhaps after all it was not
the eyes that held me. Perhaps the eyes were no more than rounds of
crystal between us, pure crystal, hiding nothing. Better still, perhaps
they were of that substance which, placed across itself, allows no light
to pass, but, turned parallel, ceases to intercept. Formerly I had seen
those tourmaline rounds of Louie Causton's grey eyes as it were
transversely placed, opaque, riddling, mocking, impenetrable; now,
quicker than the flicker of a camera-shutter, they had changed, and, for
me, would never again change back. I had seen down into her soul. Her
physical form, three hours before, had not been more openly offered to
my gazing than was that measureless deep interior she showed me now....
And that she too had plunged to the bottom of my own soul, her question
was sufficient evidence.
And now, as that vision of her spirit, stark and piercing as Billy
Izzard's of her body had been, must abide with me for ever, there was no
special need for hurrying matters. Though I had known it not, it was for
that last stripping look that I had whispered so breathlessly to her
over the screen; and she, unlike me, had known why she had whispered
back. So, the thing being now done, our time was our own. As slowly as I
had retreated to the railings, I advanced from them again. Once more I
held the umbrella over her.
"Come," I said. "You're getting wet."
Again, without a moment's hesitation, she passed her hand under my arm,
and we moved towards the Palace.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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