She put her
arm round his neck and kissed him behind his ear. He, not knowing the
swift processes of her thought, imagined that he had "knocked a bit of
the silliness out of her" effectively.
"Poor little boy," she whispered, and he liked it.
The waters of the harbour began to deepen to indigo: the sun went down
behind the roofs of the city at their side. There was a faint faraway
crackling in the air as of straw and twigs burning in a fierce fire;
the sky was flooded with streamers of mauve and green, gold and rosy
light that flickered over the bed of the sinking sun for an hour or more
instead of leaving the sky suddenly grey as it usually was after the
rapid twilight. The sundown bugle called down the flag on the masthead
of the flagship, and the headlights twinkled out. Marcella and Louis
grew very quiet as the streets quietened and only an occasional car
clanged by in George Street, an occasional band of singing sailors went
back rollicking down the street, a solitary ferry glided along in the
water, with brilliant reflections and blaring German band. She crept a
little closer to him; when he did not speak she forgot, for the while,
the chasm between them. It is so easy not to criticize anything seen
through veils of glamour. People socially, spiritually and mentally
worlds apart can love violently for a while when there is physical
attraction.
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