He lay so, with closed eyes a little time, floating in an ecstasy that seemed to be half stupor and half of keenest sensibility.

Then he opened his eyes.

She was kneeling by the couch on which he lay.

He felt her soft, quick breathing, and noted the unnatural shining of her eyes and lips where the firelight fell upon them.

All at once he threw out his arms and drew her to him with such a shuddering rush of power that she cried aloud in quick alarm--but the cry was smothered under his kisses.
For ages the transport seemed to endure, the little world of his senses whirling madly through an illimitable space of sensuous light, his lips melting upon hers, his neck bending in the circle of pulsing warmth that her soft arms wove about it, his own arms crushing to his breast with frenzied fervour the whole yielding splendour of her womanhood.