When she ceased her heart was beating so violently that there was a
rush in her ears like the noise of the river after rain, and she did
not immediately make out what he was answering. But as she recovered
her lucidity she said to herself that, whatever he was saying, she
must not hear it; and she began to speak again, half playfully, half
appealingly, with an eloquence of entreaty, an ingenuity in
argument, of which she had never dreamed herself capable. And then,
suddenly, strangling hands seemed to reach up from her heart to her
throat, and she had to stop.
Her companion remained motionless. He had not tried to regain her
hand, and his eyes were away from her, on the river. But his
nearness had become something formidable and exquisite--something
she had never before imagined. A flush of guilt swept over
her--vague reminiscences of French novels and of opera plots. This
was what such women felt, then . . . this was "shame." . . . Phrases
of the newspaper and the pulpit danced before her.
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