Page 158 - lady-chatterlys-lover

liery was better than oxygen to him. It gave him a sense of
power, power. He was doing something: and he was GO-
ING to do something. He was going to win, to win: not as
he had won with his stories, mere publicity, amid a whole
sapping of energy and malice. But a man’s victory.
At first he thought the solution lay in electricity: convert
the coal into electric power. Then a new idea came. The Ger-
mans invented a new locomotive engine with a self feeder,
that did not need a fireman. And it was to be fed with a new
fuel, that burnt in small quantities at a great heat, under pe-
culiar conditions.
The idea of a new concentrated fuel that burnt with a
hard slowness at a fierce heat was what first attracted Clif-
ford. There must be some sort of external stimulus of the
burning of such fuel, not merely air supply. He began to
experiment, and got a clever young fellow, who had proved
brilliant in chemistry, to help him.
And he felt triumphant. He had at last got out of himself.
He had fulfilled his life-long secret yearning to get out of
himself. Art had not done it for him. Art had only made it
worse. But now, now he had done it.
He was not aware how much Mrs Bolton was behind
him. He did not know how much he depended on her. But
for all that, it was evident that when he was with her his
voice dropped to an easy rhythm of intimacy, almost a trifle
vulgar.
With Connie, he was a little stiff. He felt he owed her
everything, and he showed her the utmost respect and con-
sideration, so long as she gave him mere outward respect.

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