murmured Lily. "And she said, 'Why
didn't you ask him to come in to tea?' But of course she doesn't know
I'm meeting you this evening. I'm supposed to be going to church."

Michael's heart leaped at the thought that soon he would be able to see
her in her own home among her own belongings, so that in future no
conjured picture of her would be incomplete.

"Rather decent of your mother," he said.

"Oh, well, she's got to be very easy-going and all that, though of
course she doesn't like us to get talked about. What shall we do now?"

"Walk about, I suppose," said Michael. "Unless we get on top of a bus
and ride somewhere? Why not ride up to Hammersmith Broadway and then
walk along the towing-path?"

They found a seat full in the frore wind's face, but yet the ride was
all too short, and almost by the time Michael had finished securing the
waterproof rug in which they sat incapable of movement, so tightly were
they braced in, it was time to undo it again and dismount. While the
church bells were ringing, they crossed Hammersmith Suspension Bridge
ethereal in the creeping river-mist and faintly motionable like a ship
at anchor. Then they wandered by the river that lapped the dead reeds
and gurgled along the base of the shelving clay bank. The wind drearily
stirred the osier-beds, and from time to time the dull tread of
indefinite passing forms was heard upon the sodden path. Michael could
feel the humid fog lying upon Lily's sleeve, and when he drew her cheek
to his own it was bedewed with the falling night. But when their lips
met, the moisture and October chill were all consumed, and like a
burning rose she flamed upon his vision. Words to express his adoration
tumbled around him like nightmare speech, evasive, mocking, grotesquely
inadequate.

"There are no words to say how much I love to hold you, Lily," he
complained. "It's like holding a flower. And even in the dark I can see
your eyes."

"I can't see yours," she murmured, and therefore nestled closer, "I like
you to kiss me," she sighed.

"Oh, why do you?" Michael asked. "Why me?"

"You're nice," she less than whispered.

"Lily, I do love you."

And Michael bit his lip at the close of "love" for the sweet pain of
making the foolish word more powerful, more long.

"What a funny husky voice," she murmured in her own deep indolent tones.

"Do you like me to call you 'darling' or 'dearest' best?" he asked.

"Both."

"Ah, but which do you like best?"