Strange though it may seem, the kind, awkward, absent-minded touch of Richard as he had lifted her on to the Horse Vivian's back had been for her the one flaw in that enchanted ride.

She could not bear touch.

She had no pleasure in seeing or feeling the skin and homespun that encloses men and women.

She hated to watch people feeding themselves, or to see her own thin body in the mirror.

She ought really to have been born a poplar tree; a human body was a gift wasted on her.
As they passed along the Green Ride, the red light from the Horse Vivian's neck made a sort of heralding ghost before them on the grass.
Bats darted above them for a few yards at a time, and were twitched aside as though by a string or a reminding conscience.