will you?' he would have been flying headlong into the ocean before
she had uttered the last word.

They went together out of the garden and turned homewards, not by the
streets of the town, but through the outskirts.




XXVIII


Sanin walked along, at one time by Gemma's side, at another time a
little behind her. He never took his eyes off her and never ceased
smiling. She seemed to hasten ... seemed to linger. As a matter of
fact, they both--he all pale, and she all flushed with emotion--were
moving along as in a dream. What they had done together a few instants
before--that surrender of each soul to another soul--was so intense,
so new, and so moving; so suddenly everything in their lives had been
changed and displaced that they could not recover themselves, and were
only aware of a whirlwind carrying them along, like the whirlwind
on that night, which had almost flung them into each other's arms.
Sanin walked along, and felt that he even looked at Gemma with other
eyes; he instantly noted some peculiarities in her walk, in her
movements,--and heavens! how infinitely sweet and precious they were
to him! And she felt that that was how he was looking at her.

Sanin and she were in love for the first time; all the miracles of
first love were working in them. First love is like a revolution; the
uniformly regular routine of ordered life is broken down and shattered