There was something so quaint to his mind in Christie’s fragile identity being stirred by the urge of drastic realism, that he looked at her in amazement.

“They’re not so reticent now, are they?” he said.

But it was difficult for him to give his full attention to this dialogue between them. Another dialogue, far more important, was going on in his own mind. With concentrated interest he had already noticed that she was wearing brown silk stockings under her thin brown skirt. The sight of her bare arms made him shiver at the thought of her slipping off those stockings! It seemed absurd that he dared not even kneel down and unbutton the straps of her little-girl black slippers! The thought, “She’s never had a lover⁠ ⁠… no one has ever undressed her⁠ ⁠… she doesn’t know what it is to be idolized from head to foot,” ran like ravishing little drops of quicksilver through his tingling nerves. “Under that brown dress, under all she’s got on, she’s as slim and slippery as a bluebell-stalk pulled up by the root!”