thought of that way."

"It's much better," Mary said.

"The other's not a patch upon it," said George.



III.

You must conjecture of what lovers think when, following their first
kiss, they sit silent. It is not a state that may be written down in
such poor words as your author commands. For the touch of lips on lips
is the key that turns the lock and gives admission to a world dimly
conceived, yet found to have been wrongly conceived since conceived
never to be so wonderful or so beautiful as it does prove. Nor, ever
again, once the silence is broken and speech is found, has that world
an aspect quite the same. For the door that divides this new world
from the material world can never from the inside be closed. It is at
first--for the space of that silence after the first kiss--pushed
very close by those who have entered; but, soon after, the breath of
every rushing moment blows it further and further ajar. Drab objects
from the outer world drift across the threshold and obtrude their
presence--vagabond tramps in a rose-garden, unpleasant, marring the
surroundings, soiling the atmosphere. Cares drift in, worldly
interests drift in; in drift smudgy, soiled, unpleasant objects
brushing the door yet wider upon its hinges till it stands back to its
furthest extent and the interior becomes at one with the outer world.
The process is gradual, indiscernible. When completed the knowledge of
what has been done dawns suddenly. One knocks against an intruder