But this question of love (she thought, putting her coat away),
this falling in love with women. Take Sally Seton; her relation in
the old days It
was a sudden revelation, a tinge like a blush which one tried to
check and then, as it spread, one yielded to its expansion, and
rushed to the farthest verge and there quivered and felt the world
come closer, swollen with some astonishing significance, some
pressure of rapture, which split its thin skin and gushed and poured
with an extraordinary alleviation over the cracks and sores! Then,
for that moment, she had seen an illumination; a match burning in a
crocus; an inner meaning almost expressed. But the close withdrew;
the hard softened. It was over-the moment. Against such moments
(with women too) there contrasted (as she
laid her hat down) the bed and Baron Marbot and the candle
half-burnt. Lying awake, the floor creaked; the lit house was
suddenly darkened, and if she raised her head she could just hear the
click of the handle released as gently as possible by Richard, who
slipped upstairs in his socks and then, as often as not, dropped his
hot-water bottle and swore! How she laughed!!