“Her friend - and her partner on the stage.

I had said too much - but it was that, or say nothing.” I felt as if my admiration for Kitty Butler had lit a beacon inside me, and opening my unguarded mouth had sent a shaft of light into the darkened room, illuminating all. There was a look on her face - it was not ambiguous at all now - a look of mingled shock, and nervousness, and embarrassment or shame. I opened my eyes and looked at Alice - and knew at once that I shouldn’t have spoken that I should have been as dumb and as cunning with her as with the rest of them. I never knew that there were girls like her…” My voice became a trembling whisper then, and I found that I could say no more. She makes me sore, here.” I placed a hand upon my chest, upon the breast-bone. Then she walks on the stage and - she is so pretty and her suit is so nice and her voice is so sweet… She makes me want to smile and weep, at once. I watch the acts before her and they are like nothing - they’re like dust. It’s like I am filling up, like a wine-glass when it’s filled with wine. It’s like I never saw anything at all before. “When I see her,” I said, “it’s like - I don’t know what it’s like.

Tipping the velvet by sarah waters