Page 401 - lady-chatterlys-lover

married and her name’s Bertha—
There was not a word about herself, or to her. Connie
resented this. He might have said some few words of conso-
lation or reassurance. But she knew he was leaving her free,
free to go back to Wragby and to Clifford. She resented that
too. He need riot be so falsely chivalrous. She wished he had
said to Clifford: ‘Yes, she is my lover and my mistress and I
am proud of it!’ But his courage wouldn’t carry him so far.
So her name was coupled with his in Tevershall! It was a
mess. But that would soon die down.
She was angry, with the complicated and confused anger
that made her inert. She did not know what to do nor what
to say, so she said and did nothing. She went on at Ven-
ice just the same, rowing out in the gondola with Duncan
Forbes, bathing, letting the days slip by. Duncan, who had
been rather depressingly in love with her ten years ago, was
in love with her again. But she said to him: ‘I only want one
thing of men, and that is, that they should leave me alone.’
So Duncan left her alone: really quite pleased to be able
to. All the same, he offered her a soft stream of a queer, in-
verted sort of love. He wanted to be WITH her.
’Have you ever thought,’ he said to her one day, ‘how very
little people are connected with one another. Look at Dan-
iele! He is handsome as a son of the sun. But see how alone
he looks in his handsomeness. Yet I bet he has a wife and
family, and couldn’t possibly go away from them.’
’Ask him,’ said Connie.
Duncan did so. Daniele said he was married, and had
two children, both male, aged seven and nine. But he be-

00 Lady Chatterly’s Lover