Page 615 - women-in-love

of his whitish eyebrows, that met between his brows.
‘How do you like it?’ he said.
He seemed to be laughing inside himself, quite uncon-
sciously. She looked at him. He was a phenomenon to her,
not a human being: a sort of creature, greedy.
‘I like it very much,’ she replied.
‘Who do you like best downstairs?’ he asked, standing
tall and glistening above her, with his glistening stiff hair
erect.
‘Who do I like best?’ she repeated, wanting to answer his
question, and finding it difficult to collect herself. ‘Why I
don’t know, I don’t know enough about them yet, to be able
to say. Who do YOU like best?’
‘Oh, I don’t care—I don’t like or dislike any of them. It
doesn’t matter about me. I wanted to know about you.’
‘But why?’ she asked, going rather pale. The abstract, un-
conscious smile in his eyes was intensified.
‘I wanted to know,’ he said.
She turned aside, breaking the spell. In some strange
way, she felt he was getting power over her.
‘Well, I can’t tell you already,’ she said.
She went to the mirror to take out the hairpins from
her hair. She stood before the mirror every night for some
minutes, brushing her fine dark hair. It was part of the in-
evitable ritual of her life.
He followed her, and stood behind her. She was busy with
bent head, taking out the pins and shaking her warm hair
loose. When she looked up, she saw him in the glass stand-
ing behind her, watching unconsciously, not consciously

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