Oh, Gloria, Gloria!
A cab yawned at the curb. As it moved off like a boat on a labyrinthine
ocean and lost itself among the inchoate night masses of the great
buildings, among the now stilled, now strident, cries and clangings,
Anthony put his arm around the girl, drew her over to him and kissed her
damp, childish mouth.
She was silent. She turned her face up to him, pale under the wisps and
patches of light that trailed in like moonshine through a foliage. Her
eyes were gleaming ripples in the white lake of her face; the shadows of
her hair bordered the brow with a persuasive unintimate dusk. No love
was there, surely; nor the imprint of any love. Her beauty was cool as
this damp breeze, as the moist softness of her own lips.
"You're such a swan in this light," he whispered after a moment. There
were silences as murmurous as sound. There were pauses that seemed about
to shatter and were only to be snatched back to oblivion by the
tightening of his arms about her and the sense that she was resting
there as a caught, gossamer feather, drifted in out of the dark. Anthony
laughed, noiselessly and exultantly, turning his face up and away from
her, half in an overpowering rush of triumph, half lest her sight of him
should spoil the splendid immobility of her expression.
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