He went down to the kitchen where everything had been left ready for him
over-night. He lit the gas-ring and made the tea and brought it to her
with cake and bread and butter on a little tray. He set it down beside
her on the window-seat. But Anne could neither eat nor drink. She cried
out to him.
"Oh, Jerry, look at him. Do you think he's dying now?"
He knelt down and looked. Nicky's eyes were two slits of glaze between
half-shut lids. His fur stood up on his bulging, frowning forehead. His
little, flat cat's face was drawn to a point with a look of helpless
innocence and anguish. His rose-leaf tongue showed between his teeth as
he panted.
"Yes. I'm awfully afraid he's dying."
They waited half an hour, an hour. They never knew how long. Once he
said to her, "Would you rather I went or stayed?" And she said, "Stayed,
if you don't mind."
Through the open window, from the fields of charlock warm in the risen
sun, the faint, smooth scent came to them.
Then Nicky began to cough with a queer quacking sound. Jerrold went to
her, upsetting the saucer as he came.
"It's his milk," she said. "He couldn't drink it." And with that she
burst into tears.
"Oh, Anne, don't cry. Don't cry, Anne darling."
He put his arm round her. He laid his hand on her hair and stroked it.
He stooped suddenly and kissed her face; gently, quietly, because of the
dead thing in her lap.
It was as if he had kissed her for the first time.
For one instant she had her arm round his neck and clung to him, hiding
her face on his shoulder. Then suddenly she loosed herself and stood up
before him, holding out the body of the little cat.
"Take him away, please, Jerry, so that I don't see him."
He took him away.
All day the sense of kissing her remained with him, and all night, with
the scent of her hair, the sweet rose-scent of her flesh, the touch of
her smooth rose-leaf skin. That was Anne, that strangeness, that beauty
of the clear, cold dawn, that scent, that warm sweet smoothness, that
clinging of passionate arms. And he had kissed her gently, quietly, as
you kiss a child, as you kiss a young, small animal.
He wanted to kiss her close, pressing down on her mouth, deep into her
sweet flesh; to hold her body tight, tight, crushed in his arms. If it
hadn't been for Nicky that was the way he would have kissed her.
To-morrow, to-morrow, he would kiss Anne that way.