THE LAST ARABIAN NIGHT 497

passion. He knew that this was what happened with
these wonderful creatures: he had seen it happen many
a time on the pictures.

At first, he had realised, with wonder and humility,
that it was all miraculous, that he was nobody in
particular with nothing very much to offer. But she
herself had changed that. She had kissed him into being
somebody, and now he had a great deal to offer, his love,
his life. Very- soon, being a born lover and romantic, it
seemed to him that no girl could want more than that.
Living over and over again as he did that hour or so of
passionate embraces and kisses, he could look back on
what appeared to him a long intimacy with her, far re-
moved from any casual encounter (for he knew all about
them, and this was quite different), so that he felt he had
a claim, a right, and that when she avoided him or in
any way challenged that claim, she was trying to escape
from the very condition of life itself. Thus, if it was not
wilfulness and waywardness, then it was something
abominably wicked stirring in her to be regarded as a
bigoted and militant priest would regard a heresy. None
of this, of course, moved on the surface of his mind, but
it coiled and uncoiled below that surface and obscurely
determined what did eventually move there or what at
last came bursting through, exploding beyond thought,
into action.

When the Golspies came back, after Christmas, it took
two imploring letters and a final telephone call (he rang
up from the nearest call-box to the office during a time
when Mr. Golspie was safely away from the flat) to
induce her to agree to another meeting, and even then?
after all the crescendo of excitement, she never turned
up. He was left in a hot and salted misery of shame