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hired woman. It killed, he said to himself, the real flower of
the intimacy between him and her. But Connie didn’t mind
that. The fine flower of their intimacy was to her rather like
an orchid, a bulb stuck parasitic on her tree of life, and pro-
ducing, to her eyes, a rather shabby flower.
Now she had more time to herself she could softly play
the piano, up in her room, and sing: ‘Touch not the nettle,
for the bonds of love are ill to loose.’ She had not realized
till lately how ill to loose they were, these bonds of love. But
thank Heaven she had loosened them! She was so glad to
be alone, not always to have to talk to him. When he was
alone he tapped-tapped-tapped on a typewriter, to infin-
ity. But when he was not ‘working’, and she was there, he
talked, always talked; infinite small analysis of people and
motives, and results, characters and personalities, till now
she had had enough. For years she had loved it, until she
had enough, and then suddenly it was too much. She was
thankful to be alone.
It was as if thousands and thousands of little roots and
threads of consciousness in him and her had grown togeth-
er into a tangled mass, till they could crowd no more, and
the plant was dying. Now quietly, subtly, she was unravel-
ling the tangle of his consciousness and hers, breaking the
threads gently, one by one, with patience and impatience
to get clear. But the bonds of such love are more ill to loose
even than most bonds; though Mrs Bolton’s coming had
been a great help.
But he still wanted the old intimate evenings of talk with
Connie: talk or reading aloud. But now she could arrange

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