«To a nunnery go and quickly too. Farewell.»
«I know this amuses you immensely. But please stop, be silent, don't touch.»
«I won't be silent and I will touch.» She put her tormenting hand upon my arm again.
I said, «You are behaving-so badly-I wouldn't have-believed-you could be so-frivolously-unkind.»
I turned round to face her, taking the offending hand in a strong grip just above the wrist. There was a shock wave as I apprehended rather than saw her excited half-smiling face. Then I put my arms very evenly and strongly around her shoulders and kissed her with very great care upon the mouth.
There are moments of paradise which are worth millennia of hell, or so one may think, only one is not always fully conscious of this at the moment in question. I was fully conscious. I knew that even if the ruin of the world were to ensue I had made a good bargain. I had imagined kissing Julian, but I had not prefigured this concentrated intensity of pure joy, this sudden white-hot rapturous pressure of lips upon lips, being upon being.
I was so utterly transported by the quite unexpected experience of holding and kissing her that it was only, I think, in some secondary moment inside this moment that I became aware that she was also holding and kissing me. Both her arms were round my neck and her lips were ardent and her eyes were closed.
I turned my head and began to push her away and she withdrew her arms from my neck. I was aided in releasing her by the innate awkwardness of seated kissing. We drew apart.
«Don't talk lying rubbish.»
«What am I to do? You won't listen properly. You think I'm a child, you think I'm playing, it's not so. Of course I'm confused. I've known you such a long time, all my life. I've always loved you. Please don't interrupt. Oh if you only knew how much I always looked forward to your coming, wanted to talk to you, wanted to tell you things. You never noticed, but lots and lots of things weren't real to me at all until I'd told you about them. If you only knew how much I've always admired you. When I was a child I used to say I wanted to marry you. Do you remember? I'm sure you don't. You've been my ideal man for ever and ever. And this isn't just a silly child's thing, it isn't even a sort of crush, it's a deep real love. Of course it's a love I've not questioned or thought about or even named until quite lately-but I have questioned it and thought about it-as soon as I felt and knew that I was grown up. You see, my love has grown up too. I've so much wanted to be with you, I've so much wanted to get to know you properly, since I've been a woman. Why do you think I made all that fuss about discussing the play? I did want to discuss the play. But I much more wanted and needed your affection and your attention. God, I wanted just to look at you. You can't think how I've longed to touch you and kiss you sometimes in these last, oh years, only I didn't dare to and thought I never would. And lately, oh ever since that day you saw me tearing up the letters, I've been thinking about you almost all the time-and so especially since last week when I-when I had a sort of premonition about- what you told me tonight-I've thought about nothing else but you.»
«What about Septimus?» I said.
«Who?»
«Septimus. Septimus Leech. Your boy friend. Haven't you been able to spare a couple of minutes to think about him?»
«Oh that. I just said that. I think I may even have said it out of some sort of instinct to tease you. He isn't my boy friend, he's just a friend. I haven't got a boy friend.»
I said, «I see.» I got up lightly and quickly and made for the gateway. I turned along Bedford Street in the direction of Leicester Square station. As I crossed into Garrick Street, Julian, walking beside me, thrust her left hand into my right hand. With my left hand I carefully detached hers and dropped it again by her side. We walked on in silence as far as the corner of St. Martin's Lane.
Then Julian said, «I see that you're determined not to believe or attend to anything that I say. You seem to think that I'm still about twelve.»
«No, no,» I said. «I attended carefully to your statement and found it interesting, even touching. And remarkably well expressed considering you invented it on the spur of the moment. It was not however very detailed or very clear, nor do I yet see what implications it has if any.»
«God, Bradley, I do love you.»
«That's very kind of you.»
