Page:The Golden Bowl (Scribner, New York, 1909), Volume 2.djvu/362

THE GOLDEN BOWL intensely for the lingering moment and almost with a terror of her endless power of surrender. He had only to press, really, for her to yield inch by inch, and she fairly knew at present, while she looked at him through her cloud, that the confession of this precious secret sat there for him to pluck. The sensation was for the few seconds extraordinary; her weakness, her desire, so long as she was yet not saving herself, flowered in her face like a light or a darkness. She sought for some word that would cover this up; she reverted to the question of tea, speaking as if they shouldn't meet sooner. "Then about five. I count on you."

On him too however something had descended; as to which that exactly gave him his chance. "Ah but I shall see you—! No?" he said, coming nearer.

She had, with her hand still on the knob, her back against the door, so that her retreat under his approach must be less than a step, and yet she couldn't for her life with the other hand have pushed him away. He was so near now that she could touch him, taste him, smell him, kiss him, hold him; he almost pressed upon her, and the warmth of his face—frowning, smiling, she mightn't know which; only beautiful and strange—was bent upon her with the largeness with which objects loom in dreams. She closed her eyes to it, and so the next instant, against her purpose, had put out her hand, which had met his own and which he held. Then it was that from behind her closed eyes the right word came. "Wait!" It was the word of his own distress and entreaty, the word for both of them, all they had left, their plank now on 352