Yet on a quiet night with no wind among the trees, often and often had he whispered to Nalasu, by whiff-whuff of name, from a hundred feet away.
One day, bending over him, her hair (drying from a salt-water swim) flying about him, the one-woman, her two hands holding his head and jowls so that his ribbon of kissing tongue just missed her nose in the empty air, sang to him: "'Don't know what to call him, but he's mighty lak' a rose!'" On another day she repeated this, at the same time singing most of the song to him softly in his ear.

In the midst of it Jerry surprised her.
Equally true might be the statement that he surprised himself.

Never, had he consciously done such a thing before.

And he did it without volition.

He never intended to do it.