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(From A Room with a View by Coco Rousseau and E.M. Forster)

“The Signora had no business to do it,” said Miss Bartlett, “no business at all. She promised us south rooms with a view close together, instead of which here are north rooms, looking into a courtyard, and a long way apart. Oh, Lucy!”

“And a Cockney, besides!” said Lucy to her cousin, Miss Bartlett, who had been further saddened by the Signora’s unexpected accent. “It might be London,” Lucy continued. Then she looked at the two rows of English people who were sitting at the table; at the row of white bottles of water and red bottles of wine that ran between the English people; at the portraits of the late Queen and the late Poet Laureate that hung behind the English people, heavily framed; at the notice of the English church (Rev. Cuthbert Eager, M. A. Oxon.), that was the only other decoration of the wall; and she might have remained saddened had her eyes not swept past an older gentleman and come to rest upon the dashingly handsome face of a young man. She studied the lines of his face, absorbing all of his features at once. There was a softness to his fair complexion and cerulean eyes, yet the man in him was strong and exuded all that was masculine, all that she so longed to know.

Lucy’s bosom swelled, her heart began to flutter, and her breath hastened. She was utterly mesmerized, unable to break her gaze, though she lingered a measure too long because the young man suddenly met her stare

Bursting from within, Lucy’s heart pulsed against its cage: a cage that she had never once been allowed to escape.

The couple stared longingly into each other’s eyes as though they shared a secret: one of intimacy, one that might have revealed they had been lovers from the birth of time. Despite her attempt to stay calm, she felt her cheeks flush with heat and her pulse quicken. When a fork clinked loudly against the older man’s plate, Lucy quickly cast her eyes down and toward her own plate. Searching for her breath, she could hardly believe her boldness, a brazenness that had sprung from hidden depths inside her that she had not even known existed. How could she have permitted herself to be partner to this surreptitious exchange with a stranger?

Was she to blame for these strange new feelings that were beginning to stir deep within her — feelings that glided like lightning from the tips of her bosoms through her loins and down to the very ends of her toes.

How could she feel such yearning desire to be in the arms of a man she had never once laid eyes upon before this day in her life? She felt as though she was possessed by some inexplicable and captivating allure. She questioned whether she would be able to eat another bite much less converse with the others while they took their evening meal.