Page 272 - women-in-love

self, so we are found different. One shouldn’t talk when one
is tired and wretched. One Hamletises, and it seems a lie.
Only believe me when I show you a bit of healthy pride and
insouciance. I hate myself serious.’
‘Why shouldn’t you be serious?’ she said.
He thought for a minute, then he said, sulkily:
‘I don’t know.’ Then they walked on in silence, at outs. He
was vague and lost.
‘Isn’t it strange,’ she said, suddenly putting her hand on
his arm, with a loving impulse, ‘how we always talk like
this! I suppose we do love each other, in some way.’
‘Oh yes,’ he said; ‘too much.’
She laughed almost gaily.
‘You’d have to have it your own way, wouldn’t you?’ she
teased. ‘You could never take it on trust.’
He changed, laughed softly, and turned and took her in
his arms, in the middle of the road.
‘Yes,’ he said softly.
And he kissed her face and brow, slowly, gently, with a
sort of delicate happiness which surprised her extremely,
and to which she could not respond. They were soft, blind
kisses, perfect in their stillness. Yet she held back from
them. It was like strange moths, very soft and silent, set-
tling on her from the darkness of her soul. She was uneasy.
She drew away.
‘Isn’t somebody coming?’ she said.
So they looked down the dark road, then set off again
walking towards Beldover. Then suddenly, to show him she
was no shallow prude, she stopped and held him tight, hard

272 Women in Love