ead.

"Speak, can't you!"

He leant against the window and began to giggle again. Audrey turned at
the sound, and looked at him through eyes veiled with tears; her lips
were trembling a little, and her fingers relaxed their convulsive grasp.
He darted forward, seized her hand, and kissed it an indefinite number
of times, exclaiming incoherently--

"Brute, hound, cur that I am! Forgive me--only say you'll forgive me! I
know I'm not fit to live! And yet, how could I tell? Good heavens! what
funny things women are?" Here he took possession of the little lace
pocket-handkerchief, and wiped her eyes very gently. Then he kissed her
once on the mouth, reverently but deliberately.

To do Audrey justice, she had meant to sustain her part with maidenly
reserve, but she was totally unprepared for this acceleration of the
march of events. She said nothing, but went back submissively to her
sofa, hand in hand with Ted. There they sat for a minute looking rather
stupidly into each other's faces.

The lady was the first to recover her self-possession. She raised her
hand with a benedictory air and let it rest lightly, ever so lightly, on
Ted's hair.

"My dear boy," she murmured, "I forgave you all the time."

Now there is nothing that will dwarf the proportions of the grand
passion and bring you to your sober senses sooner than being patted on
the head and called "My dear boy" by the lady of your love. Ted ducked
from under the delicate caress, and rose to his feet with dignity. His
emotion was spent, and he was chiefly conscious of the absurdity of the
situation. Every object in that ridiculous room accentuated the
distasteful humour of the thing. Psyche looked downcast virgin
disapproval from her pedestal under the Malay creeses, and the frivolous
little Parisienne flung her skirts abroad in the very abandonment of
derision.

If only he hadn't made a fool of himself, if only he hadn't told that
drivelling story about the Japanese umbrella, if only he hadn't laughed
in that frantic manner, and if only----But no, he could not look back
on the last five minutes. The past was a grey blank, but the flaming
episode of the kiss had burnt a big black hole in his present
consciousness. He felt that by that rash, unpardonable act he had
desecrated the holy thing; and with it all, had forestalled, delayed,
perhaps for ever prevented, the sanction of some diviner opportunity. If
he had only waited another year, she could not have call