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mackintosh.’
He hung up his gun, slipped out of his wet leather jacket,
and reached for the blankets.
’I brought another blanket,’ he said, ‘so we can put one
over us if you like.’
’I can’t stay long,’ she said. ‘Dinner is half-past seven.’
He looked at her swiftly, then at his watch.
’All right,’ he said.
He shut the door, and lit a tiny light in the hanging hur-
ricane lamp. ‘One time we’ll have a long time,’ he said.
He put the blankets down carefully, one folded for her
head. Then he sat down a moment on the stool, and drew
her to him, holding her close with one arm, feeling for her
body with his free hand. She heard the catch of his intaken
breath as he found her. Under her frail petticoat she was
naked.
’Eh! what it is to touch thee!’ he said, as his finger ca-
ressed the delicate, warm, secret skin of her waist and hips.
He put his face down and rubbed his cheek against her belly
and against her thighs again and again. And again she won-
dered a little over the sort of rapture it was to him. She did
not understand the beauty he found in her, through touch
upon her living secret body, almost the ecstasy of beauty.
For passion alone is awake to it. And when passion is dead,
or absent, then the magnificent throb of beauty is incom-
prehensible and even a little despicable; warm, live beauty
of contact, so much deeper than the beauty of vision. She
felt the glide of his cheek on her thighs and belly and but-
tocks, and the close brushing of his moustache and his soft

1 Lady Chatterly’s Lover