Page 368 - women-in-love

It was a great effort to him to maintain this conversation,
and to press for the thing he wanted from her, the surrender
of her spirit.
‘It is different,’ he said. ‘The two kinds of service are so
different. I serve you in another way—not through YOUR-
SELF—somewhere else. But I want us to be together without
bothering about ourselves—to be really together because we
ARE together, as if it were a phenomenon, not a not a thing
we have to maintain by our own effort.’
‘No,’ she said, pondering. ‘You are just egocentric. You
never have any enthusiasm, you never come out with any
spark towards me. You want yourself, really, and your own
affairs. And you want me just to be there, to serve you.’
But this only made him shut off from her.
‘Ah well,’ he said, ‘words make no matter, any way. The
thing IS between us, or it isn’t.’
‘You don’t even love me,’ she cried.
‘I do,’ he said angrily. ‘But I want—‘ His mind saw again
the lovely golden light of spring transfused through her
eyes, as through some wonderful window. And he wanted
her to be with him there, in this world of proud indiffer-
ence. But what was the good of telling her he wanted this
company in proud indifference. What was the good of talk-
ing, any way? It must happen beyond the sound of words. It
was merely ruinous to try to work her by conviction. This
was a paradisal bird that could never be netted, it must fly
by itself to the heart.
‘I always think I am going to be loved—and then I am let
down. You DON’T love me, you know. You don’t want to

368 Women in Love