LITMIR.BIZ

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      He looked at her.

      “Nay,” he said.

      She began to tremble.

      “You see,” she said, taking his face and shutting it out against her shoulder—“you see—as we are—how can I get used to you? It would come all right if we were married.”

      He lifted her head, and looked at her.

      “You mean, now, it is always too much shock?”

      “Yes—and—”

      “You are always clenched against me.”

      She was trembling with agitation.

      “You see,” she said, “I'm not used to the thought—”

      “You are lately,” he said.

      “But all my life. Mother said to me: 'There is one thing in marriage that is always dreadful, but you have to bear it.' And I believed it.”

      “And still believe it,” he said.

      “No!” she cried hastily. “I believe, as you do, that loving, even in THAT way, is the high-water mark of living.”

      “That doesn't alter the fact that you never want it.”

      “No,” she said, taking his head in her arms and rocking in despair. “Don't say so! You don't understand.” She rocked with pain. “Don't I want your children?”

      “But not me.”

      “How can you say so? But we must be married to have children—”

      “Shall we be married, then? I want you to have my children.”

      He kissed her hand reverently. She pondered sadly, watching him.

      “We are too young,” she said at length.

      “Twenty-four and twenty-three—”

      “Not yet,” she pleaded, as she rocked herself in distress.

      “When you will,” he said.

      She bowed her head gravely. The tone of hopelessness in which he said these things grieved her deeply. It had always been a failure between them. Tacitly, she acquiesced in what he felt.

      And after a week of love he said to his mother suddenly one Sunday night, just as they were going to bed:

      “I shan't go so much to Miriam's, mother.”

      She was surprised, but she would not ask him anything.

      “You please yourself,” she said.

      So he went to bed. But there was a new quietness about him which she had wondered at. She almost guessed. She would leave him alone, however. Precipitation might spoil things. She watched him in his loneliness, wondering where he would end. He was sick, and much too quiet for him. There was a perpetual little knitting of his brows, such as she had seen when he was a small baby, and which had been gone for many years. Now it was the same again. And she could do nothing for him. He had to go on alone, make his own way.

      He continued faithful to Miriam. For one day he had loved her utterly. But it never came again. The sense of failure grew stronger. At first it was only a sadness. Then he began to feel he could not go on. He wanted to run, to go abroad, anything. Gradually he ceased to ask her to have him. Instead of drawing them together, it put them apart. And then he realised, consciously, that it was no good. It was useless trying: it would never be a success between them.

      For some months he had seen very little of Clara. They had occasionally walked out for half an hour at dinner-time. But he always reserved himself for Miriam. With Clara, however, his brow cleared, and he was gay again. She treated him indulgently, as if he were a child. He thought he did not mind. But deep below the surface it piqued him.

      Sometimes Miriam said:

      “What about Clara? I hear nothing of her lately.”

      “I walked with her about twenty minutes yesterday,” he replied.

      “And what did she talk about?”

      “I don't know. I suppose I did all the jawing—I usually do. I think I was telling her about the strike, and how the women took it.”

      “Yes.”

      So he gave the account of himself.

      But insidiously, without his knowing it, the warmth he felt for Clara drew him away from Miriam, for whom he felt responsible, and to whom he felt he belonged. He thought he was being quite faithful to her. It was not easy to estimate exactly the strength and warmth of one's feelings for a woman till they have run away with one.

      He began to give more time to his men friends. There was Jessop, at the art school; Swain, who was chemistry demonstrator at the university; Newton, who was a teacher; besides Edgar and Miriam's younger brothers. Pleading work, he sketched and studied with Jessop. He called in the university for Swain, and the two went “down town” together. Having come home in the train with Newton, he called and had a game of billiards with him in the Moon and Stars. If he gave to Miriam the excuse of his men friends, he felt quite justified. His mother began to be relieved. He always told her where he had been.

      During the summer Clara wore sometimes a dress of soft cotton stuff with loose sleeves. When she lifted her hands, her sleeves fell back, and her beautiful strong arms shone out.

      “Half a minute,” he cried. “Hold your arm still.”

      He made sketches of her hand and arm, and the drawings contained some of the fascination the real thing had for him. Miriam, who always went scrupulously through his books and papers, saw the drawings.

      “I think Clara has such beautiful arms,” he said.

      “Yes! When did you draw them?”

      “On Tuesday, in the work-room. You know, I've got a corner where I can work. Often I can do every single thing they need in the department, before dinner. Then I work for myself in the afternoon, and just see to things at night.”

      “Yes,” she said, turning the leaves of his sketch-book.

      Frequently he hated Miriam. He hated her as she bent forward and pored over his things. He hated her way of patiently casting him up, as if he were an endless psychological account. When he was with her, he hated her for having got him, and yet not got him, and he tortured her. She took all and gave nothing, he said. At least, she gave no living warmth. She was never alive, and giving off life. Looking for her was like looking for something which did not exist. She was only his conscience, not his mate. He hated her violently, and was more cruel to her. They dragged on till the next summer. He saw more and more of Clara.

      At last he spoke. He had been sitting working at home one evening. There was between him and his mother a peculiar condition of people frankly finding fault with each other. Mrs. Morel was strong on her feet again. He was not going to stick to Miriam. Very well; then she would stand aloof till he said something. It had been coming a long time, this bursting of the storm in him, when he would come back to her. This evening there was between them a peculiar condition of suspense. He worked feverishly and mechanically, so that he could escape from himself. It grew late. Through the open door, stealthily, came the scent of madonna lilies, almost as if it were prowling abroad. Suddenly he got up and went out of doors.

      The beauty of the night made him want to shout. A half-moon, dusky gold, was sinking behind the black sycamore at the end of the garden, making the sky dull purple with its glow. Nearer, a dim white fence of lilies went across the garden, and the air all round seemed to stir with scent, as if it were alive. He went across the bed of pinks, whose keen perfume came sharply across the rocking, heavy scent of the lilies, and stood alongside the white barrier of flowers. They flagged all loose, as if they were panting. The scent made him drunk. He went down to the field to watch the moon sink under.

      A corncrake in the hay-close called insistently. The moon slid quite quickly downwards, growing

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