She began to shake. I supposed she was still afraid. Then I began to shake, too. I forgot to think of Gentleman, after that. I thought only of her. When her face grew wet with tears, I kissed them away.
''You pearl,'' I said. So white she was! ''You pearl, you pearl, you pearl.''
It was easy to say, in the darkness. It was easy to do. But next morning I woke, saw the strips of grey light between the curtains of the bed, remembered what I had done, and thought, My God. Maud lay, still sleeping, her brows drawn together in a frown. Her mouth was open. Her lip had grown dry. My lip was dry, too, and I brought up my hand, to touch it. Then I took the hand away. It smelt of her. The smell made me shiver, inside. The shiver was a ghost of the shiver that had seized me—seized us both—as I''d moved against her, in the night. Being fetched, the girls of the Borough call it. Did he fetch you—? They will tell you it comes on you like a sneeze; but a sneeze is nothing to it, nothing at all—