But he lay inert in the sand,
among the indifferent groups of children with their spades and buckets.
Pity at her little figure wandering, seeking, was well-nigh merged in
the spring-running of his blood; for it was all wild feeling now--the
chivalrous part, what there had been of it, was gone. He wanted her
again, wanted her kisses, her soft, little body, her abandonment, all
her quick, warm, pagan emotion; wanted the wonderful feeling of that
night under the moonlit apple boughs; wanted it all with a horrible
intensity, as the faun wants the nymph. The quick chatter of the little
bright trout-stream, the dazzle of the buttercups, the rocks of the old
"wild men"; the calling of the cuckoos and yaffles, the hooting of the
owls; and the red moon peeping out of the velvet dark at the living
whiteness of the blossom; and her face just out of reach at the window,
lost in its love-look; and her heart against his, her lips answering
his, under the apple tree--all this besieged him. Yet he lay inert. What
was it which struggled against pity and this feverish longing, and kept
him there paralysed in the warm sand? Three flaxen heads--a fair face
with friendly blue--grey eyes, a slim hand pressing his, a quick voice
speaking his name--"So you do believe in being good?" Yes, and a sort
of atmosphere as of some old walled-in English garden, with pinks, and
cornflowers, and roses, and scents of lavender and lilaccool and fair,
untouched, almost holy--all that he had been brought up to feel was
clean and good.
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