And at that, I shudder, or quiver. For it is like the finding out of something raw, the troubling of a wound, a nerve. She feels me jolt, and draws away—but slowly, slowly and unwillingly, so that
our damp mouths seem to cling together and, as they part, to tear. She holds herself above me. I feel the rapid beating of a heart, and suppose it my own. But it is hers. Her breath comes, fast. She has begun, very lightly, to tremble.
Then I catch the excitement of her, the amazement of her.
''Do you feel it?'' she says. Her voice sounds strangely in the absolute darkness. ''Do you feel it?''
I do. I feel it as a falling, a dropping, a trickling, like sand from a bulb of glass. Then I move; and I am not dry, like sand. I am wet. I am running, like water, like ink.
I begin, like her, to shake.①①
''Don''t be frightened,'' she says. Her voice has a catch. I move again, but she moves, too, she comes nearer to me, and my flesh gives a leap, to hers. She is trembling, worse than before. She is trembling, from the closeness of me! She says, ''Think more of Mr Rivers.''—I think of Richard, watching. She says again, ''Don''t be frightened.''—But it is she who seems frightened. Her voice still has its catch. She kisses me again. Then she raises her hand and I feel the tips of her fingers flutter against my face.