fiefoe

The romances are progressing apace.

She felt the coolness of his skin and the warmth of the firelight as if it were all in a dream filled with pleasure that was like pain and the old, old words of demand and obscenity that seemed like words of love in his mouth.
He took her into his arms again. {This is at the end of Chapter 5 - one likes to note these things.}
"I am afraid for you," he said. "You're too smart, too pretty, you want too much. You know, there's a wall in Italy covered with bits of feathers and blood because thousands and thousands of sparrows hurl themselves against it every year and are killed. Why do they do it? Who knows."
If she could love Mike, it would be the most exciting thing in her present life, she knew, and knowing it she was half in love with him already.
"Do you have a suntan yet, darling?" he said in a pleasant, conversational tone. She nodded. "Show me your suntan."

The two sides of sympathy:

There is something to be said for someone else's exaggerated sympathy. If it happens to fall a little far afield it makes the original problem seem a bit remote and not quite worth it.
Events and misfortunes that might not deserve that sympathy but which would be sure to receive it from a girl like herself to whom they would all be new and shocking and therefore poignant.

"The Best of Everything"