ted so quickly,
mysteriously true. She said:

"Derek, I feel like a hill with the sun on it!"

"I feel like that yellow cloud with the wind in it."

"I feel like an apple-tree coming into blossom."

"I feel like a giant."

"I feel like a song."

"I feel I could sing you."

"On a river, floating along."

"A wide one, with great plains on each side, and beasts coming down
to drink, and either the sun or a yellow moon shining, and some one
singing, too, far off."

"The Red Sarafan."

"Let's run!"

From that yellow cloud sailing in moonlight a spurt of rain had driven
into their faces, and they ran as fast as their blood was flowing, and
the raindrops coming down, jumping half the width of the little dark
streets, clutching each other's arms. And peering round into her face,
so sweet and breathless, into her eyes, so dark and dancing, he felt he
could run all night if he had her there to run beside him through the
dark. Into another street they dashed, and again another, till she
stopped, panting.

"Where are we now?"

Neither knew. A policeman put them right for Portland Place. Half past
one! And it would be dawn soon after three! They walked soberly again
now into the outer circle of Regent's Park; talked soberly, too,
discussing sublunary matters, and every now and then, their arms, round
each other, gave little convulsive squeezes. The rain had stopped and
the moon shone clear; by its light the trees and flowers were clothed
in colors whose blood had spilled away; the town's murmur was dying, the
house lights dead already. They came out of the park into a road where
the latest taxis were rattling past; a face, a bare neck, silk hat, or
shirt-front gleamed in the window-squares, and now and then a laugh came
floating through. They stopped to watch them from under the low-hanging
branches of an acacia-tree, and Derek, gazing at her face, still wet
with rain, so young and round and soft, thought: 'And she loves me!'
Suddenly she clutched him round the neck, and their lips met.

They talked not at all for a long time after that kiss, walking slowly
up the long, empty road, while the whitish clouds sailed across the dark
river of the sky and the moon slowly sank. This was the most delicious
part of all that long walk home, for the kiss had made them feel as
though they had no bodies, but were just two spirits walking side by
side. This is its curious effect sometimes in first love between the
very young..