Page 689 - women-in-love

She trembled, as she stood in her room, with excitement
and awful exhilaration. She knew she could outwit him. She
could depend on her presence of mind, and on her wits. But
it was a fight to the death, she knew it now. One slip, and she
was lost. She had a strange, tense, exhilarated sickness in her
body, as one who is in peril of falling from a great height,
but who does not look down, does not admit the fear.
‘I will go away the day after tomorrow,’ she said.
She only did not want Gerald to think that she was afraid
of him, that she was running away because she was afraid
of him. She was not afraid of him, fundamentally. She knew
it was her safeguard to avoid his physical violence. But even
physically she was not afraid of him. She wanted to prove
it to him. When she had proved it, that, whatever he was,
she was not afraid of him; when she had proved THAT, she
could leave him forever. But meanwhile the fight between
them, terrible as she knew it to be, was inconclusive. And
she wanted to be confident in herself. However many terrors
she might have, she would be unafraid, uncowed by him. He
could never cow her, nor dominate her, nor have any right
over her; this she would maintain until she had proved it.
Once it was proved, she was free of him forever.
But she had not proved it yet, neither to him nor to her-
self. And this was what still bound her to him. She was
bound to him, she could not live beyond him. She sat up in
bed, closely wrapped up, for many hours, thinking endless-
ly to herself. It was as if she would never have done weaving
the great provision of her thoughts.
‘It isn’t as if he really loved me,’ she said to herself. ‘He

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