What was in the far recesses of that soul, where these two young people were concerned, must remain unrevealed; but Li Choo and the halfbreed woman in their own language--which was almost without words--clucked and grunted their understanding.
Left alone again, Louise found herself seated with only the table between herself and Orlando, pouring him tea and offering him white frosted cake like that dispensed at weddings; while Orlando chuckled his thanks and thought what a wonderful thing it was that a bullet in a man's side could bring the unexpected to pass and the heart's desire of a man within the touch of his fingers.
Their conversation was like that of two children.

She talked of her bird Richard, which she had sent to him every morning that it might sing to him; of her black cat Nigger, which sat on his lap for many an hour of the day; of the dog Jumbo, which said its prayers for him to get well, for a piece of sugar-that was a trick Louise had taught it long ago.
Orlando talked of his horses and of his mother--who, he declared, was the most unselfish person on the whole continent; how she only thought of him, and spent her money for him, and gave to him, never thinking of herself at all.
"She has the youngest heart of anyone in the world," said Orlando.
Louise did not even smile at that.

No one with a heart that was not infantile could dress and talk as Orlando's mother dressed and talked; and so Louise said softly: "I am sure her heart is a thousand years younger than mine--or younger than mine was." And then she blushed, and Orlando blushed, for he understood what was in her mind--that until they two had met, she was, as the Young Doctor said, a victim to senile decay.
That was the nearest they had come as yet to saying anything which, being translated, as it were, through several languages, could mean love-making.

Their love-making had only been by an inflection of the voice, by a soft abstraction, by a tuning of their spirits to each other.

They were indeed like two children; and yet Li Choo was right when, in his dark soul, he conceived them to be lovers, and thought they would do what lovers do--hold hands and kiss and whisper, with never an end to a sentence, never a beginning.
It was not that these things were impossible to them.