LITMIR.BIZ

Скачать книгу

soft, satirical, abstract.

      “Yes. She never really hitched on to me—you were always there in the background. That's why she wouldn't get a divorce.”

      Dawes continued to stare in a satirical fashion at the picture over the mantelpiece.

      “That's how women are with me,” said Paul. “They want me like mad, but they don't want to belong to me. And she BELONGED to you all the time. I knew.”

      The triumphant male came up in Dawes. He showed his teeth more distinctly.

      “Perhaps I was a fool,” he said.

      “You were a big fool,” said Morel.

      “But perhaps even THEN you were a bigger fool,” said Dawes.

      There was a touch of triumph and malice in it.

      “Do you think so?” said Paul.

      They were silent for some time.

      “At any rate, I'm clearing out to-morrow,” said Morel.

      “I see,” answered Dawes.

      Then they did not talk any more. The instinct to murder each other had returned. They almost avoided each other.

      They shared the same bedroom. When they retired Dawes seemed abstract, thinking of something. He sat on the side of the bed in his shirt, looking at his legs.

      “Aren't you getting cold?” asked Morel.

      “I was lookin' at these legs,” replied the other.

      “What's up with 'em? They look all right,” replied Paul, from his bed.

      “They look all right. But there's some water in 'em yet.”

      “And what about it?”

      “Come and look.”

      Paul reluctantly got out of bed and went to look at the rather handsome legs of the other man that were covered with glistening, dark gold hair.

      “Look here,” said Dawes, pointing to his shin. “Look at the water under here.”

      “Where?” said Paul.

      The man pressed in his finger-tips. They left little dents that filled up slowly.

      “It's nothing,” said Paul.

      “You feel,” said Dawes.

      Paul tried with his fingers. It made little dents.

      “H'm!” he said.

      “Rotten, isn't it?” said Dawes.

      “Why? It's nothing much.”

      “You're not much of a man with water in your legs.”

      “I can't see as it makes any difference,” said Morel. “I've got a weak chest.”

      He returned to his own bed.

      “I suppose the rest of me's all right,” said Dawes, and he put out the light.

      In the morning it was raining. Morel packed his bag. The sea was grey and shaggy and dismal. He seemed to be cutting himself off from life more and more. It gave him a wicked pleasure to do it.

      The two men were at the station. Clara stepped out of the train, and came along the platform, very erect and coldly composed. She wore a long coat and a tweed hat. Both men hated her for her composure. Paul shook hands with her at the barrier. Dawes was leaning against the bookstall, watching. His black overcoat was buttoned up to the chin because of the rain. He was pale, with almost a touch of nobility in his quietness. He came forward, limping slightly.

      “You ought to look better than this,” she said.

      “Oh, I'm all right now.”

      The three stood at a loss. She kept the two men hesitating near her.

      “Shall we go to the lodging straight off,” said Paul, “or somewhere else?”

      “We may as well go home,” said Dawes.

      Paul walked on the outside of the pavement, then Dawes, then Clara. They made polite conversation. The sitting-room faced the sea, whose tide, grey and shaggy, hissed not far off.

      Morel swung up the big arm-chair.

      “Sit down, Jack,” he said.

      “I don't want that chair,” said Dawes.

      “Sit down!” Morel repeated.

      Clara took off her things and laid them on the couch. She had a slight air of resentment. Lifting her hair with her fingers, she sat down, rather aloof and composed. Paul ran downstairs to speak to the landlady.

      “I should think you're cold,” said Dawes to his wife. “Come nearer to the fire.”

      “Thank you, I'm quite warm,” she answered.

      She looked out of the window at the rain and at the sea.

      “When are you going back?” she asked.

      “Well, the rooms are taken until to-morrow, so he wants me to stop. He's going back to-night.”

      “And then you're thinking of going to Sheffield?”

      “Yes.”

      “Are you fit to start work?”

      “I'm going to start.”

      “You've really got a place?”

      “Yes—begin on Monday.”

      “You don't look fit.”

      “Why don't I?”

      She looked again out of the window instead of answering.

      “And have you got lodgings in Sheffield?”

      “Yes.”

      Again she looked away out of the window. The panes were blurred with streaming rain.

      “And can you manage all right?” she asked.

      “I s'd think so. I s'll have to!”

      They were silent when Morel returned.

      “I shall go by the four-twenty,” he said as he entered.

      Nobody answered.

      “I wish you'd take your boots off,” he said to Clara.

      “There's a pair of slippers of mine.”

      “Thank you,” she said. “They aren't wet.”

      He put the slippers near her feet. She left them there.

      Morel sat down. Both the men seemed helpless, and each of them had a rather hunted look. But Dawes now carried himself quietly, seemed to yield himself, while Paul seemed to screw himself up. Clara thought she had never seen him look so small and mean. He was as if trying to get himself into the smallest possible compass. And as he went about arranging, and as he sat talking, there seemed something false about him and out of tune. Watching him unknown, she said to herself there was no stability about him. He was fine in his way, passionate, and able to give her drinks of pure life when he was in one mood. And now he looked paltry and insignificant. There was nothing stable about him. Her husband had more manly dignity. At any rate HE did not waft about with any wind. There was something evanescent about Morel, she thought, something shifting and false. He would never make sure ground for any woman to stand on. She despised him rather for his shrinking together, getting smaller. Her husband at least was manly, and when he was beaten gave in. But this other would never own to being beaten. He would shift round and round, prowl, get smaller. She despised him. And yet she watched him rather than Dawes, and it seemed as if their three fates lay in his hands. She hated him for it.

      She seemed to understand better now about men, and what they could or would do. She was less afraid of them, more sure of herself. That they were not

Скачать книгу