Saturday, April 11, 2009

As always when she saw Roddy, Elinor was conscious of a slightly giddy feeling, a throb of sudden pleasure, a feeling that it was incumbent for her to be very matter-of-fact and unemotional. Because it was so very obvious that Roddy, although he loved her, didn't feel about her the way she felt about him. The first sight of him did something to her, twisted her heart round so that it almost hurt. Absurd that a man - an ordinary, yes, a perfectly ordinary young man - should be able to do that to one! That the mere look of him should set the world spinning, that his voice should make you want - just a little - to cry . . . Love surely should be a pleasurable emotion - not something that hurt you by its intensity . . .
One thing was clear: one must be very, very careful to be off-hand and casual about it all. Men didn't like devotion and adoration. Certainly Roddy didn't.

Agatha Christie, Sad Cypress, Collins, UK, 1940