Her light brown
hair was fluffed out on her shoulders, so that he felt a kind of
fainting-sweet sensation, and murmured inarticulately:
"Oh! I say--how jolly!"
"Lawks! It's awful! Have you come to see mother?"
Balanced between fear and daring, conscious of a scent of hay and
verbena and camomile, Bob Pillin stammered:
"Ye-es. I--I'm glad she's not in, though."
Her laugh seemed to him terribly unfeeling.
"Oh! oh! Don't be foolish. Sit down. Isn't washing one's head awful?"
Bob Pillin answered feebly:
"Of course, I haven't much experience."
Her mouth opened.
"Oh! You are--aren't you?"
And he thought desperately: 'Dare I--oughtn't I--couldn't I somehow take
her hand or put my arm round her, or something?' Instead, he sat very
rigid at his end of the sofa, while she sat lax and lissom at the other,
and one of those crises of paralysis which beset would-be lovers fixed
him to the soul.
Sometimes during this last month memories of a past existence, when
chaff and even kisses came readily to the lips, and girls were fair
game, would make him think: 'Is she really such an innocent? Doesn't she
really want me to kiss her?' Alas! such intrusions lasted but a moment
before a blast of awe and chivalry withered them, and a strange and
tragic delicacy--like nothing he had ever known--resumed its sway.
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