Page 473 - sons-and-lovers

there below they caught glimpses of the full, soft-sliding
Trent, and of water-meadows dotted with small cattle.
‘It has scarcely altered since little Kirke White used to
come,’ he said.
But he was watching her throat below the ear, where the
flush was fusing into the honey-white, and her mouth that
pouted disconsolate. She stirred against him as she walked,
and his body was like a taut string.
Halfway up the big colonnade of elms, where the Grove
rose highest above the river, their forward movement fal-
tered to an end. He led her across to the grass, under the
trees at the edge of the path. The cliff of red earth sloped
swiftly down, through trees and bushes, to the river that
glimmered and was dark between the foliage. The far-below
water-meadows were very green. He and she stood leaning
against one another, silent, afraid, their bodies touching all
along. There came a quick gurgle from the river below.
‘Why,’ he asked at length, ‘did you hate Baxter Dawes?’
She turned to him with a splendid movement. Her mouth
was offered him, and her throat; her eyes were half-shut;
her breast was tilted as if it asked for him. He flashed with
a small laugh, shut his eyes, and met her in a long, whole
kiss. Her mouth fused with his; their bodies were sealed and
annealed. It was some minutes before they withdrew. They
were standing beside the public path.
‘Will you go down to the river?’ he asked.
She looked at him, leaving herself in his hands. He went
over the brim of the declivity and began to climb down.
‘It is slippery,’ he said.

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