oh softly, so softly that she seemed to faint
away, his lips touched her cheek, and she drifted through
strands of heat and darkness.

Still she waited, in her swoon and her drifting, waited, like
the Sleeping Beauty in the story. She waited, and again his face
was bent to hers, his lips came warm to her face, their
footsteps lingered and ceased, they stood still under the trees,
whilst his lips waited on her face, waited like a butterfly that
does not move on a flower. She pressed her breast a little
nearer to him, he moved, put both his arms round her, and drew
her close.

And then, in the darkness, he bent to her mouth, softly, and
touched her mouth with his mouth. She was afraid, she lay still
on his arm, feeling his lips on her lips. She kept still,
helpless. Then his mouth drew near, pressing open her mouth, a
hot, drenching surge rose within her, she opened her lips to
him, in pained, poignant eddies she drew him nearer, she let him
come farther, his lips came and surging, surging, soft, oh soft,
yet oh, like the powerful surge of water, irresistible, till
with a little blind cry, she broke away.

She heard him breathing heavily, strangely, beside her. A
terrible and magnificent sense of his strangeness possessed her.
But she shrank a little now, within herself. Hesitating, they
continued to walk on, quivering like shadows under the ash trees
of the hill, where her grandfather had walked with his daffodils
to make his proposal, and where her mother had gone with her
young husband, walking close upon him as Ursula was now walking
upon Skrebensky.

Ursula was aware of the dark limbs of the trees stretching
overhead, clothed with leaves, and of fine ash leaves tressing
the summer night.

They walked with their bodies moving in complex unity, close
together. He held her hand, and they went the long way round by
the road, to be farther. Always she felt as if she were
supported off her feet, as if her feet were light as little
breezes in motion.

He would kiss her again--but not again that night with
the same deep--reaching kiss. She was aware now, aware of
what a kiss might be. And so, it was more difficult to come to
him.

She went to bed feeling all warm with electric warmth, as if
the gush of dawn were within her, upholding her. And she slept
deeply, sweetly, oh, so sweetly. In the morning she felt sound
as an ear of wheat, fragrant and firm and full.

They continued to be lovers, in the first wonde