Page 221 - lady-chatterlys-lover

’Do you mind if I go?’ she said. You know it was prom-
ised, for this summer.
’For how long would you go?’
’Perhaps three weeks.’
There was silence for a time.
’Well,’ said Clifford slowly, and a little gloomily. ‘I sup-
pose I could stand it for three weeks: if I were absolutely
sure you’d want to come back.’
’I should want to come back,’ she said, with a quiet sim-
plicity, heavy with conviction. She was thinking of the other
man.
Clifford felt her conviction, and somehow he believed
her, he believed it was for him. He felt immensely relieved,
joyful at once.
’In that case,’ he said,
’I think it would be all right, don’t you?’
’I think so,’ she said.
’You’d enjoy the change?’ She looked up at him with
strange blue eyes.
’I should like to see Venice again,’ she said, ‘and to bathe
from one of the shingle islands across the lagoon. But you
know I loathe the Lido! And I don’t fancy I shall like Sir Al-
exander Cooper and Lady Cooper. But if Hilda is there, and
we have a gondola of our own: yes, it will be rather lovely. I
DO wish you’d come.’
She said it sincerely. She would so love to make him hap-
py, in these ways.
’Ah, but think of me, though, at the Gare du Nord: at Cal-
ais quay!’

0 Lady Chatterly’s Lover