Page 382 - women-in-love

trouble at the hands of her father. It was all unnecessary,
and he himself need not have provoked it.
The two men sat in complete silence, Birkin almost un-
conscious of his own whereabouts. He had come to ask her
to marry him—well then, he would wait on, and ask her. As
for what she said, whether she accepted or not, he did not
think about it. He would say what he had come to say, and
that was all he was conscious of. He accepted the complete
insignificance of this household, for him. But everything
now was as if fated. He could see one thing ahead, and no
more. From the rest, he was absolved entirely for the time
being. It had to be left to fate and chance to resolve the is-
sues.
At length they heard the gate. They saw her coming up
the steps with a bundle of books under her arm. Her face
was bright and abstracted as usual, with the abstraction,
that look of being not quite THERE, not quite present to
the facts of reality, that galled her father so much. She had
a maddening faculty of assuming a light of her own, which
excluded the reality, and within which she looked radiant
as if in sunshine.
They heard her go into the dining-room, and drop her
armful of books on the table.
‘Did you bring me that Girl’s Own?’ cried Rosalind.
‘Yes, I brought it. But I forgot which one it was you want-
ed.’
‘You would,’ cried Rosalind angrily. ‘It’s right for a won-
der.’
Then they heard her say something in a lowered tone.

382 Women in Love