“North-northeast, did you say?” His voice sounded irrelevant even to his own ears. In some queer way he felt as if he had been sharing these furtive physical memories with the girl at his side. He even felt as if their having shared them had been a kind of lovemaking more subtle and delicate than any erotic dalliance.

He felt as if he could share with this elfin creature a thousand feelings that no other person could possibly understand⁠—share with her all those profoundly physical sensations⁠—and yet mystical, too⁠—that made up the real undercurrent of his whole life.

“She would understand my ‘mythology,’ ” he said to himself. “No one but she would; no one!” And then he thought: “I believe my life is going to open out now, as if I really had some invisible tutelary Power directing me!”

They turned away simultaneously from the window, and once more sat down.