“Why shouldn’t I think of you?” she exclaimed with hardly breath to utter it.

He gave the wry, quick hiss of a laugh.

“Oh, in that way!⁠ ⁠… May I hold your hand for a minute?” he asked suddenly, fixing his eyes on her with almost hypnotic power, and sending out an appeal that affected her direct in the womb.

She stared at him, dazed and transfixed, and he went over and kneeled beside her, and took her two feet close in his two hands, and buried his face in her lap, remaining motionless. She was perfectly dim and dazed, looking down in a sort of amazement at the rather tender nape of his neck, feeling his face pressing her thighs. In all her burning dismay, she could not help putting her hand, with tenderness and compassion, on the defenceless nape of his neck, and he trembled with a deep shudder.