She had not known she could speak
like that. She dropped her face into her hands, and in the rapture of
her own daring and in the recollection of the excitement which had
frozen them into a stillness through which the beating of their hearts
sounded like a faint tap of drums, there came the doubt of her
sincerity.
Had she really meant what she said? Yet she could have said nothing
else. The words had left her lips involuntarily, her voice, as though
of itself, had taken on that tender tone. She could not have failed in
that dramatic moment, but now she was half afraid of her undertaking.
Well, her hands dropped to her sides, she had given her word; she had
promised herself in an heroic surrender and her very doubts seemed to
sanctify the act.
For a long time she sat by the fire, half undressed, her immature thin
arms hanging loosely, her sombre eyes staring at the fire. She wished
this night might go on for ever, this time of ecstasy between a
promise and its fulfilment. She had seen disillusionment in another
and did not laugh at its possibility for herself; it would come to
her, she thought, as it had come to her mother, who had hoped her
daughter would find happiness in love; and Henrietta wondered if that
gentle spirit was aware of what was happening.
The thought troubled her a little, and from her mother, who had been a
neglected wife, it was no more than a step to that other, lying on her
back, tortured and lonely.
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