Page:My Life and Loves.djvu/251

 without a word so gravely that I did not even kiss her: but began explaining what Smith was to me and how I could not do enough for him who was everything to my mind as she was (God help me!) to my heart and body, and I kissed her cold lips while she shook her head half sadly.

"We have a sixth sense, we women, when we are in love", she began: "I feel a new influence in you; I scent danger in the air you bring with you: don't ask me to explain: I can't; but my heart is heavy and cold as death . . . If you leave me, there'll be a catastrophe: the fall from such a height of happiness must be fatal . . . If you can feel pleasure away from me, you no longer love me. I feel none except in having you, seeing you, thinking of you—none. Oh! why can't you love like a woman loves, No! like I love: it would be heaven; for you and you alone satisfy the insatiable; you leave me bathed in bliss, sighing with satisfaction, happy as the Queen of Heaven!"

"I have much to tell you, new things to say", I began in haste.

"Come upstairs," I broke in interrupting myself "I want you as you are now, with the color in your cheeks, the light in your eyes, the vibration in your voice, come!"

And she came like a sad sybil. "Who gave you the tact?" she began while we were undressing, "the tact to praise always?" I seized her and stood naked against her body to body: "What new thing have you to tell me?" I asked, lifting her into the bed and getting in beside her, cuddling up to her warmer body.

"There's always something new in my love," she cried, cupping my face with her slim hands and taking my lips with hers.