Helen May felt as though he had taken her in his arms and kissed her
lingeringly. Yet he had not moved except to turn his face toward her. She
could not look away, could not even try to pull her eyes from his. It was
as though she yielded. She felt suffocated, though her breath came
quickly, a little unevenly.
Starr looked away, across the desert where the moon lighted it whitely.
It was as though he had released her. She felt flustered, disconcerted.
She could not understand herself or him, or the primary forces that had
moved them both. And why had he sung that _Bedouin Love Song_ just as she
was thinking it as something that explained him and identified him? It
was mysterious as the desert itself lying there so quiet under the moon.
It was weird as the cry of the coyote. It was uncanny as spirit rappings.
But she could not feel any resentment; only a thrill that was part
pleasure and part pain. She wondered if he had felt the same; if he knew.
But she could not bring herself to face even the thought of asking him.
It was like the night silence around them: speech would dwarf and cheapen
and distort.
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