Page 606 - women-in-love

her boot-soles. It was night, and silence. She imagined she
could hear the stars. She imagined distinctly she could hear
the celestial, musical motion of the stars, quite near at hand.
She seemed like a bird flying amongst their harmonious
motion.
And she clung close to Birkin. Suddenly she realised
she did not know what he was thinking. She did not know
where he was ranging.
‘My love!’ she said, stopping to look at him.
His face was pale, his eyes dark, there was a faint spark of
starlight on them. And he saw her face soft and upturned to
him, very near. He kissed her softly.
‘What then?’ he asked.
‘Do you love me?’ she asked.
‘Too much,’ he answered quietly.
She clung a little closer.
‘Not too much,’ she pleaded.
‘Far too much,’ he said, almost sadly.
‘And does it make you sad, that I am everything to you?’
she asked, wistful. He held her close to him, kissing her, and
saying, scarcely audible:
‘No, but I feel like a beggar—I feel poor.’
She was silent, looking at the stars now. Then she kissed
him.
‘Don’t be a beggar,’ she pleaded, wistfully. ‘It isn’t igno-
minious that you love me.’
‘It is ignominious to feel poor, isn’t it?’ he replied.
‘Why? Why should it be?’ she asked. He only stood still,
in the terribly cold air that moved invisibly over the moun-

606 Women in Love