LITMIR.BIZ

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to Mrs. Morel. She saw that our chance for DOING is here, and doing counted with her. Paul was going to prove that she had been right; he was going to make a man whom nothing should shift off his feet; he was going to alter the face of the earth in some way which mattered. Wherever he went she felt her soul went with him. Whatever he did she felt her soul stood by him, ready, as it were, to hand him his tools. She could not bear it when he was with Miriam. William was dead. She would fight to keep Paul.

      And he came back to her. And in his soul was a feeling of the satisfaction of self-sacrifice because he was faithful to her. She loved him first; he loved her first. And yet it was not enough. His new young life, so strong and imperious, was urged towards something else. It made him mad with restlessness. She saw this, and wished bitterly that Miriam had been a woman who could take this new life of his, and leave her the roots. He fought against his mother almost as he fought against Miriam.

      It was a week before he went again to Willey Farm. Miriam had suffered a great deal, and was afraid to see him again. Was she now to endure the ignominy of his abandoning her? That would only be superficial and temporary. He would come back. She held the keys to his soul. But meanwhile, how he would torture her with his battle against her. She shrank from it.

      However, the Sunday after Easter he came to tea. Mrs. Leivers was glad to see him. She gathered something was fretting him, that he found things hard. He seemed to drift to her for comfort. And she was good to him. She did him that great kindness of treating him almost with reverence.

      He met her with the young children in the front garden.

      “I'm glad you've come,” said the mother, looking at him with her great appealing brown eyes. “It is such a sunny day. I was just going down the fields for the first time this year.”

      He felt she would like him to come. That soothed him. They went, talking simply, he gentle and humble. He could have wept with gratitude that she was deferential to him. He was feeling humiliated.

      At the bottom of the Mow Close they found a thrush's nest.

      “Shall I show you the eggs?” he said.

      “Do!” replied Mrs. Leivers. “They seem SUCH a sign of spring, and so hopeful.”

      He put aside the thorns, and took out the eggs, holding them in the palm of his hand.

      “They are quite hot—I think we frightened her off them,” he said.

      “Ay, poor thing!” said Mrs. Leivers.

      Miriam could not help touching the eggs, and his hand which, it seemed to her, cradled them so well.

      “Isn't it a strange warmth!” she murmured, to get near him.

      “Blood heat,” he answered.

      She watched him putting them back, his body pressed against the hedge, his arm reaching slowly through the thorns, his hand folded carefully over the eggs. He was concentrated on the act. Seeing him so, she loved him; he seemed so simple and sufficient to himself. And she could not get to him.

      After tea she stood hesitating at the bookshelf. He took “Tartarin de Tarascon”. Again they sat on the bank of hay at the foot of the stack. He read a couple of pages, but without any heart for it. Again the dog came racing up to repeat the fun of the other day. He shoved his muzzle in the man's chest. Paul fingered his ear for a moment. Then he pushed him away.

      “Go away, Bill,” he said. “I don't want you.”

      Bill slunk off, and Miriam wondered and dreaded what was coming. There was a silence about the youth that made her still with apprehension. It was not his furies, but his quiet resolutions that she feared.

      Turning his face a little to one side, so that she could not see him, he began, speaking slowly and painfully:

      “Do you think—if I didn't come up so much—you might get to like somebody else—another man?”

      So this was what he was still harping on.

      “But I don't know any other men. Why do you ask?” she replied, in a low tone that should have been a reproach to him.

      “Why,” he blurted, “because they say I've no right to come up like this—without we mean to marry—”

      Miriam was indignant at anybody's forcing the issues between them. She had been furious with her own father for suggesting to Paul, laughingly, that he knew why he came so much.

      “Who says?” she asked, wondering if her people had anything to do with it. They had not.

      “Mother—and the others. They say at this rate everybody will consider me engaged, and I ought to consider myself so, because it's not fair to you. And I've tried to find out—and I don't think I love you as a man ought to love his wife. What do you think about it?”

      Miriam bowed her head moodily. She was angry at having this struggle. People should leave him and her alone.

      “I don't know,” she murmured.

      “Do you think we love each other enough to marry?” he asked definitely. It made her tremble.

      “No,” she answered truthfully. “I don't think so—we're too young.”

      “I thought perhaps,” he went on miserably, “that you, with your intensity in things, might have given me more—than I could ever make up to you. And even now—if you think it better—we'll be engaged.”

      Now Miriam wanted to cry. And she was angry, too. He was always such a child for people to do as they liked with.

      “No, I don't think so,” she said firmly.

      He pondered a minute.

      “You see,” he said, “with me—I don't think one person would ever monopolize me—be everything to me—I think never.”

      This she did not consider.

      “No,” she murmured. Then, after a pause, she looked at him, and her dark eyes flashed.

      “This is your mother,” she said. “I know she never liked me.”

      “No, no, it isn't,” he said hastily. “It was for your sake she spoke this time. She only said, if I was going on, I ought to consider myself engaged.” There was a silence. “And if I ask you to come down any time, you won't stop away, will you?”

      She did not answer. By this time she was very angry.

      “Well, what shall we do?” she said shortly. “I suppose I'd better drop French. I was just beginning to get on with it. But I suppose I can go on alone.”

      “I don't see that we need,” he said. “I can give you a French lesson, surely.”

      “Well—and there are Sunday nights. I shan't stop coming to chapel, because I enjoy it, and it's all the social life I get. But you've no need to come home with me. I can go alone.”

      “All right,” he answered, rather taken aback. “But if I ask Edgar, he'll always come with us, and then they can say nothing.”

      There was silence. After all, then, she would not lose much. For all their talk down at his home there would not be much difference. She wished they would mind their own business.

      “And you won't think about it, and let it trouble you, will you?” he asked.

      “Oh no,” replied Miriam, without looking at him.

      He was silent. She thought him unstable. He had no fixity of purpose, no anchor of righteousness that held him.

      “Because,” he continued, “a man gets across his bicycle—and goes to work—and does all sorts of things. But a woman broods.”

      “No, I shan't bother,” said Miriam. And she meant it.

      It had gone rather chilly. They went indoors.

      “How white Paul looks!” Mrs. Leivers exclaimed. “Miriam, you shouldn't have

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