No, I've never
killed a man or loved a woman--not even in my thoughts, not even in my
dreams."
He raised her hand to his lips, and let them rest on it for a space,
during which she moved a little closer to him. After the lingering kiss
he did not relinquish his hold.
"To slay, to love--the greatest enterprises of life upon a man! And I
have no experience of either. You must forgive me anything that may have
appeared to you awkward in my behaviour, inexpressive in my speeches,
untimely in my silences."
He moved uneasily, a little disappointed by her attitude, but indulgent
to it, and feeling, in this moment of perfect quietness, that in holding
her surrendered hand he had found a closer communion than they had ever
achieved before. But even then there still lingered in him a sense of
incompleteness not altogether overcome--which, it seemed, nothing ever
would overcome--the fatal imperfection of all the gifts of life, which
makes of them a delusion and a snare.
All of a sudden he squeezed her hand angrily. His delicately playful
equanimity, the product of kindness and scorn, had perished with the
loss of his bitter liberty.
"Not murder, you say! I should think not. But when you led me to talk
just now, when the name turned up, when you understood that it was of me
that these things had been said, you showed a strange emotion.
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