Penn took a little chair, he swung it by the back like a small animal. He felt very large in the room, Gulliverian, both powerful and clumsy. He feared to hear the sound of something he was crushing with his feet. He felt he might crack anything in the room like an egg shell. He put the chair near Miranda's bed and sat down. Behind her, where the curtains revealed the black window pane, he could see moths with pale bodies and red eyes hurling themselves against the glass. Miranda waited.
Penn felt the silent empty night all round him, as vast and as sterile as if he and Miranda were afloat in a space ship. He began to feel the yearning, he rang with it like a filling vessel. He crossed his legs and said, 'Your room's nicer than mine.
Miranda said nothing. She watched him, curled like a small cat, with a feline face almost vacant, yet with a vacancy that could precede some sort of spring; and Penn felt he could scarcely be surprised to see her suddenly run up the curtains He desired her.
'What are you reading?», he said.
Miranda frowned and tossed the big coloured book on to the counterpane. Penn picked it up and saw that it was a sort of comic strip; and as he looked back to Miranda he guessed that she was annoyed that he had not found her reading something more grown-up. Then he saw that it was in French. Les Aventures de Tintin. On a Marche sur La Lune. He glanced at a few of the pictures.
'That looks good. Perhaps I could borrow it when you've finished? I don't think I'd understand much though. My French is hopeless. But I expect I could follow the pictures.
'It's no use without the text: said Miranda, retrieving the book and pushing it under her pillow. 'The words are the point. They're so witty.
'Text' and 'witty' rather disconcerted Penn and he got up again and began to pace about, squaring his shoulders. Then some of the ebullience of his body gave him strength and he felt a sort of almost impersonal exhilaration, as if he had leapt at a bound into an adult world where the tempo of life was altogether slower and more confident, where glances could be significantly held and relinquished and where words had a new weight and splendour.
'Everyone thinks you're being awfully rude to Humphrey', said the pale curled Miranda.
'But I don't want to go to London.
'Why not?
'I think you know why not. He sat down abruptly on the end of her bed. She drew her feet away and half sat up, bracing herself against the pillows. He sensed with ecstasy that she was a little frightened. He felt like a god, like a man in a film. The warm silence was full of the smell of roses.
Miranda stared at him and he stared back, she held his gaze as never before, and he rocked in it like a light plane in a gale. 'I haven't the faintest idea', she said, her voice slightly high.
'I love you, Miranda.
'Oh that. I thought you meant something about Humphrey. Could you get off my bed please? You're crumpling the counterpane.
Penn leapt up. Now that he had uttered the words he felt frenzied.
The bright room rotated about him like a whirlpool whose vortex was Miranda. Only somehow he must keep himself from sinking, from whirling, into the centre. He receded to the book shelves and luing on to them for support. He saw, fragmentarily, the black square of glass and the red eyes of the beating moths.
She had spoken with a raised note of excitement. She was, as he looked down at her, tense, moist-lipped, her face, as it seemed to him, radiant with a delighted dread. He whirled to the door and held on to the handle. 'Oh, Miranda, Miranda, I love you so dreadfully!
'Don't be so silly: she said. But she stared steadily at him and her hand grasped the neck of her pyjamas in an expectant way.
Penn clutched at the table. His need to touch her was agonizing. He reeled with it. They were silent a moment, and as he gasped for breath he saw her hand rising and falling at her breast. He could think of no words with which to express: may I touch you. He lurched forward.
'Go away', said Miranda.
'No,’ he said, standing over her.
He was at the innermost circle, slipping, slipping into the very centre. He sank one knee on to her bed. The silence of the house surrounded them attentively, fascinated, coldly.
'Horrible! said Miranda. She uttered the word softly yet with a force of venom which for a moment held him. Then almost like a blind man, spreading his hands, he began to descend upon her.
What happened next happened very quickly. Miranda reached behind her to the window sill, took one of the glass paper-weights, and brought it down with violence across the knuckles of Penn's hand as it travelled across the sheet. The paper-weight, flying from her grasp, shot across the room and shattered into a hundred pieces. Penn recoiled with a cry of pain, clasped his wounded hand with the other, half fell from the bed and lay collapsed beside it on the floor. The German dagger, emerging from his pocket, slid across the rug and came to rest against the leg of the table. Miranda shot out of bed, put on her dressing-gown and slippers and retired to the door. There was silence again. The cold watchful house had relished the little scene.
Penn lay with his face down, clasping his hand against his chest. He saw under the bed three pairs of Miranda's sandals, a wooden box, and small pieces of the paper-weight scattered like gleaming eyes or tiny coloured flowers. He rolled over and sat up, leaning against the side of the bed. He looked at his hand. The skin was slightly broken on the knuckles. Then he looked at Miranda.
Her face was quite transformed. The nervous excited look had gone and it was as if a white light from within had composed her countenance into an indistinct yet authoritative form. So it might be to see an angel. She glowed upon him, her head poised above him, and a warm bright ray fell upon him and held him breathless. With astonishment and abject gratitude he realized that he had not displeased her.
'Ah, you fool, said Miranda. Her voice was deep now. She leaned back against the door, regarding him with a sort of gentle triumph, and he felt as if she were, for the first time, really seeing him.
'I'm sorry, he said, rubbing his hand and stretching out his legs as he leaned back against the bed. The sharpness of desire had gone, or had spread rather into a haze of enslaved delight, a luminous Atmosphere in which he floated, held and guided in the beam of Miranda's gaze.
'You surprised me, she said. 'But I like to be surprised.
'I'm afraid it wasn't a pleasant surprise, said Penn. He felt an agonizing lack of proper words, but the great light supported him. He began to rise slowly.
'Did I hurt you much? The sheer rich satisfaction of her tone, so unlike her old petulant teasing, nearly brought him again to the floor.
He said humbly, 'No. Anyway I deserved to be hurt.
'You deserved it, yes. But let me see.
He advanced to her, and his body as he came felt limp and broken as if his flesh were beaten into rags. He lifted his hand before her as if presenting it for a severance. She took it at the wrist and held it, examining it. Then she took a handkerchief from her pocket and with her other hand clasped it gently over his knuckles. Penn groaned and fell on his knees before her. She released his hand and he knelt before her swaying, not touching her.