"Don't you like me to-night?" said his low voice, the voice
of the shadow over her shoulder. She clenched her hands in the
dewy brilliance of the moon, as if she were mad.
"Don't you like me to-night?" repeated the soft voice.
And she knew that if she turned, she would die. A strange
rage filled her, a rage to tear things asunder. Her hands felt
destructive, like metal blades of destruction.
"Let me alone," she said.
A darkness, an obstinacy settled on him too, in a kind of
inertia. He sat inert beside her. She threw off her cloak and
walked towards the moon, silver-white herself. He followed her
closely.
The music began again and the dance. He appropriated her.
There was a fierce, white, cold passion in her heart. But he
held her close, and danced with her. Always present, like a soft
weight upon her, bearing her down, was his body against her as
they danced. He held her very close, so that she could feel his
body, the weight of him sinking, settling upon her, overcoming
her life and energy, making her inert along with him, she felt
his hands pressing behind her, upon her. But still in her body
was the subdued, cold, indomitable passion. She liked the dance:
it eased her, put her into a sort of trance. But it was only a
kind of waiting, of using up the time that intervened between
her and her pure being. She left herself against him, she let
him exert all his power over her, to bear her down. She received
all the force of his power. She even wished he might overcome
her. She was cold and unmoved as a pillar of salt.
His will was set and straining with all its tension to
encompass him and compel her. If he could only compel her. He
seemed to be annihilated. She was cold and hard and compact of
brilliance as the moon itself, and beyond him as the moonlight
was beyond him, never to be grasped or known. If he could only
set a bond round her and compel her!
So they danced four or five dances, always together, always
his will becoming more tense, his body more subtle, playing upon
her. And still he had not got her, she was hard and bright as
ever, intact. But he must weave himself round her, enclose her,
enclose her in a net of shadow, of darkness, so she would be
like a bright creature gleaming in a net of shadows, caught.
Then he would have her, he would enjoy her. How he would enjoy
her, when she was caught.
At last, when the dance was over, she would not sit down, she
walked away. He came with his arm round her, keeping her upon
the movement of his walking. And she seemed to agree. She was
bright as a piece of moonlight, as bright as a steel blade, he
seemed to be clasping a blade that hurt him. Yet he would clasp
her, if it killed him.