Page 375 - lady-chatterlys-lover

’At least I’m not a slave to somebody else’s idea of me: and
the somebody else a servant of my husband’s,’ she retorted
at last, in crude anger.
’You see, it’s not so,’ said Connie calmly.
She had always let herself be dominated by her elder sis-
ter. Now, though somewhere inside herself she was weeping,
she was free of the dominion of OTHER WOMEN. Ah! that
in itself was a relief, like being given another life: to be free
of the strange dominion and obsession of OTHER WOM-
EN. How awful they were, women!
She was glad to be with her father, whose favourite she
had always been. She and Hilda stayed in a little hotel off
Pall Mall, and Sir Malcolm was in his club. But he took his
daughters out in the evening, and they liked going with
him.
He was still handsome and robust, though just a little
afraid of the new world that had sprung up around him. He
had got a second wife in Scotland, younger than himself
and richer. But he had as many holidays away from her as
possible: just as with his first wife.
Connie sat next to him at the opera. He was moderately
stout, and had stout thighs, but they were still strong and
well-knit, the thighs of a healthy man who had taken his
pleasure in life. His good-humoured selfishness, his dogged
sort of independence, his unrepenting sensuality, it seemed
to Connie she could see them all in his well-knit straight
thighs. Just a man! And now becoming an old man, which
is sad. Because in his strong, thick male legs there was none
of the alert sensitiveness and power of tenderness which is

Lady Chatterly’s Lover