" And then she blushed, and
Orlando blushed, for he understood what was in her mind--that until they
two had met, she was, as the Young Doctor said, a victim to senile decay.
That was the nearest they had come as yet to saying anything which, being
translated, as it were, through several languages, could mean
love-making. Their love-making had only been by an inflection of the
voice, by a soft abstraction, by a tuning of their spirits to each other.
They were indeed like two children; and yet Li Choo was right when, in
his dark soul, he conceived them to be lovers, and thought they would do
what lovers do--hold hands and kiss and whisper, with never an end to a
sentence, never a beginning.
It was not that these things were impossible to them. It was not that
their beating pulses, and the throbbing in them, was not the ancient
passion which has overturned an empire, or made a little spot of earth as
dear as Heaven above. It was that these were forbidden things, and Louise
and Orlando accepted that they were forbidden.
How long would this position last? What would the future bring? This was
only the fluttering approach of two natures, from everlasting distances.
The girl had been roused out of sleep; from her understanding the
curtains had been flung back so that she might see. How long would it
last, this simple, unsoiled story of two lives?
Orlando reached out his hand to put his cup back upon the tray.
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