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'Tomorrow afternoon. I can't come.'
'Why not?'
'Oh, the usual reason. It's started early this time.'
For a moment he was violently angry. During the month that he had
known her the nature of his desire for her had changed. At the beginning
there had been little true sensuality in it. Their first love-making had
been simply an act of the will. But after the second time it was different.
The smell of her hair, the taste of her mouth, the feeling of her skin
seemed to have got inside him, or into the air all round him. She had
become a physical necessity, something that he not only wanted but felt
that he had a right to. When she said that she could not come, he had the
feeling that she was cheating him. But just at this moment the crowd
pressed them together and their hands accidentally met. She gave the tips
of his fingers a quick squeeze that seemed to invite not desire but
affection. It struck him that when one lived with a woman this particular
disappointment must be a normal, recurring event; and a deep tenderness,
such as he had not felt for her before, suddenly took hold of him. He
wished that they were a married couple of ten years" standing. He wished
that he were walking through the streets with her just as they were doing
now but openly and without fear, talk