in, whose only issue was through
possession of her body.

So, shaken, afraid, they went back to her parents in the
kitchen, and dissimulated. But something was roused in both of
them that they could not now allay. It intensified and
heightened their senses, they were more vivid, and powerful in
their being. But under it all was a poignant sense of
transience. It was a magnificent self-assertion on the part of
both of them, he asserted himself before her, he felt himself
infinitely male and infinitely irresistible, she asserted
herself before him, she knew herself infinitely desirable, and
hence infinitely strong. And after all, what could either of
them get from such a passion but a sense of his or of her own
maximum self, in contradistinction to all the rest of life?
Wherein was something finite and sad, for the human soul at its
maximum wants a sense of the infinite.

Nevertheless, it was begun now, this passion, and must go on,
the passion of Ursula to know her own maximum self, limited and
so defined against him. She could limit and define herself
against him, the male, she could be her maximum self, female, oh
female, triumphant for one moment in exquisite assertion against
the male, in supreme contradistinction to the male.

The next afternoon, when he came, prowling, she went with him
across to the church. Her father was gradually gathering in
anger against him, her mother was hardening in anger against
her. But the parents were naturally tolerant in action.

They went together across the churchyard, Ursula and
Skrebensky, and ran to hiding in the church. It was dimmer in
there than the sunny afternoon outside, but the mellow glow
among the bowed stone was very sweet. The windows burned in ruby
and in blue, they made magnificent arras to their bower of
secret stone.

"What a perfect place for a rendezvous," he said, in a
hushed voice, glancing round.

She too glanced round the familiar interior. The dimness and
stillness chilled her. But her eyes lit up with daring. Here,
here she would assert her indomitable gorgeous female self,
here. Here she would open her female flower like a flame, in
this dimness that was more passionate than light.

They hung apart a moment, then wilfully turned to each other
for the desired contact. She put her arms round him, she cleaved
her body to his, and with her hands pressed upon his shoulders,
on his back, she seemed to feel right through him, to know his
young, tens