And she quivered, and her own mind melted out. Sharp soft waves of unspeakable pleasure washed over her as he entered her, and started the curious molten thrilling that spread and spread till she was carried away with the last, blind flush of extremity.
He heard the distant hooters of Stacks Gate for seven o'clock. It was Monday morning. He shivered a little, and with his face between her breasts pressed her soft breasts up over his ears, to deafen him.
She had not even heard the hooters. She lay perfectly still, her soul washed transparent.
`You must get up, mustn't you?' he muttered.
`What time?' came her colourless voice.
`Seven-o'clock blowers a bit sin'.'
`I suppose I must.'
She was resenting as she always did, the compulsion from outside.
He sat up and looked blankly out of the window. `You do love me, don't you?' she asked calmly. He looked down at her.
`Tha knows what tha knows. What dost ax for!' he said, a little fretfully.
`I want you to keep me, not to let me go,' she said.
His eyes seemed full of a warm, soft darkness that could not think.
`When? Now?'
`Now in your heart. Then I want to come and live with you, always, soon.'
He sat naked on the bed, with his head dropped, unable to think.
`Don't you want it?' she asked.
`Ay!' he said.
Then with the same eyes darkened with another flame of consciousness, almost like sleep, he looked at her.
`Dunna ax me nowt now,' he said. `Let me be. I like thee. I luv thee when tha lies theer. A woman's a lovely thing when 'er's deep ter fuck, and cunt's good. Ah luv thee, thy legs, an' th' shape on thee, an' th' womanness on thee. Ah luv th' womanness on thee. Ah luv thee wi' my bas an' wi' my heart. But dunna ax me nowt. Dunna ma'e me say nowt. Let me stop as I am while I can. Tha can ax me iverything after. Now let me be, let me be!'
And softly, he laid his hand over her mound of Venus, on the soft brown maiden-hair, and himself-sat still and naked on the bed, his face motionless in physical abstraction, almost like the face of Buddha. Motionless, and in the invisible flame of another consciousness, he sat with his hand on her, and waited for the turn.
After a while, he reached for his shirt and put it on, dressed himself swiftly in silence, looked at her once as she still lay naked and faintly golden like a Gloire de Dijon rose on the bed, and was gone. She heard him downstairs opening the door.