Crimson she flamed in the places of her colour--flaming and more flaming and deeper yet their flame. Their sharp limitations drove her driven white about them; from throat to flame and flame to brow as lily was her hue. She did not move nor speak, and he, amazed before her rareness, drew back a step. She might have been a statue, so still she stood. She might not have breathed, nor thought, so motionless her breast, her eyes so wide, so still her gaze. Only that glowing scarlet on her cheeks, only her skin's transparency--soft, deep, as if beneath it some jewel gave a secret light--declared her mortal and proclaimed she lived.
A space passed. She came from the trance in which she seemed to be. She gave a little sigh. As if she had been struck, not kissed; as if she had been robbed, not possessed. "Oh! Percival!" she said.
He sprung to her, took both her hands; clasped them in his and adored her with his eyes; bent his head to them and raised them to his lips.
"Oh, Dora, have I hurt you? Oh, Dora, I love you so!"
He held her hands against his breast. "I could not help it! I could not help it! I love you, Dora! I've always loved you! I suddenly knew I'd always loved you!"
She spoke so low he scarcely could hear her voice: "Percival, let me go in!"
"Oh, Dora, have I hurt you? Dear, dear Dora, you are all the world to me. I love you so, I love you so!"
The faintest movement of her head gave him his answer and gave him ecstasy.
"I have not hurt you? You are not angry? I knew--or I would not have kissed you. Speak to me, dear Dora."
She only whispered: "Percival, I would like to go in. I am afraid."
He cried: "I know. You are so beautiful--so beautiful; not meant for me to love you."
He kissed her hands again--fragile and white and cold and scented, like crushed, cold flowers in his grasp. He told her: "From the very first I loved you--but could not know it then. From that day when I first saw you! Look how I must have been born to love you--you'll not be frightened then. Snow-White-and-Rose-Red I called you. Smile, darling Dora, as you smiled when I told you in the muddy lane that day. Do you remember?"
She had no smile: still seemed aswoon, still scarcely breathed, as some bewildered dove--captured, past fluttering--which only quivers in the hands that hold it.