Chapter VIII

The modulation into an easy-going friendship was not difficult for these young people. An autumn without parallel, in its days of mellowness mingled with invigourating frosts, passed on rapid pinions. They did not bid Old Time to pause in his flight; the rhythms of their ardent blood were too insistent. They ceased to reason. Their affective life ruled. In the case of Ulick there was a throw-back to his Anglo-Saxon origins. His Parisian training and aptitudes melted in the gentle heat of new experiences. I am an American, after all, he often told himself, therefore sentimental, and sentimentality and sensuality are never far asunder. She, on the contrary, is a cerebrale, neither tepid nor tempestuous. Yet those moments when she seems on the verge of hysteria--I mean, when she goes off on those gales of laughter. She is oversexed, no doubt about that. She would rather discuss sex-problems than eat. A curious combination. So is her brother. He, too, likes to talk on forbidden subjects. People who have no outlet for their emotions are bound to brood over them and to unbosom themselves without realizing it. Steady, Ulick, steady! I'm not in love or I shouldn't be analyzing my feelings. Is she a trifle smitten? That way lies self-conceit. But she does like to be in my company, and I prefer hers to any woman's--yes, even to Easter's who never gave anyone a chance to breathe, so busy was she with herself. What egotists these mortals be! Puck should have said. I wonder what Easter is doing now? That wonderment had become a leading motive with him of late. He bitterly reflected that since the dramatic, the fatal, day in New Hampshire, she had not permitted him the slightest familiarity. She had kissed him on the steamer the day of her departure, but then she had kissed Tom, Dick and Harry with equal readiness, though she hadn't whispered to them: "You dear old Jewel." The memory of her voice, low, mysterious, tender, still fired his blood. I'm afraid I'm a sensual man. Be virtuous and you'll be bilious! He pondered the wise adage. Is physical love only a matter of hygiene? he asked himself. Tumescence; detumescence, as Havelock Ellis says. It's high time I went out on the trail after a few scalps. I'm getting a bit stale.