And then she had said, "Yes, Michael."
His hand still was tight on hers that held the crumpled rose, and when
he opened it, lover-like, to stroke and kiss it, there was a spot of
blood in the palm of it, where a rose-thorn had pricked her, just one
drop of Sylvia's blood. As he kissed it, he had wiped it away with
the tip of his tongue between his lips, and she smiling had said, "Oh,
Michael, how silly!"
They had sat together on the sofa where this afternoon he sat alone
waiting for her. Every moment of that half hour was as distinct as the
outline of trees and hills just before a storm, and yet it was still
entirely dream-like. He knew it had happened, for nothing but the
happening of it would account now for the fact of himself; but, though
there was nothing in the world so true, there was nothing so incredible.
Yet it was all as clean-cut in his mind as etched lines, and round
each line sprang flowers and singing birds. For a long space there was
silence after they had sat down, and then she said, "I think I always
loved you, Michael, only I didn't know it. . . ." Thereafter, foolish
love talk: he had claimed a superiority there, for he had always loved
her and had always known it.
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