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 "George, when did I give you a mouse?"

"A mouse? What are you talking about? You're going to give me something much better than a mouse. Do you know what I said to you once in a dream? I said, the worst of my love for you is that it's so carnal."

Her eyes met his, troubled but steady.

"And do you know what you answered?"

"No," she said pitifully. "Oh, George, George, I don't know about these things."

"You said, 'Perhaps that's what I like about it.

She clung to him in a kind of terror.

"I don't know whether I said that. George . . . don't let's be like other people. Does it matter?"

They stood together and the crickets shouted, rattled tiny feet of approval on the floor of the dunes like a gallery of young Shelleys. The whole night was one immense rhythm; up the gully from the beach came a slow vibration of surf. She was weak with the question in her blood, her knees felt empty. Perhaps that's where your morality is kept, in the knees, she thought. She slipped her arms under his coat, round the hard strong case of his ribs, to keep from tottering. The tobacco smell of his lapel was infinitely precious and pathetic.