Page 188 - sons-and-lovers

ed.
‘My boy, I tell you I don’t BELIEVE in leaving two young
things like you alone downstairs when everyone else is in
bed.’
And he was forced to take this answer. He kissed his
mother good-night.
At Easter he came over alone. And then he discussed his
sweetheart endlessly with his mother.
‘You know, mother, when I’m away from her I don’t care
for her a bit. I shouldn’t care if I never saw her again. But,
then, when I’m with her in the evenings I am awfully fond
of her.’
‘It’s a queer sort of love to marry on,’ said Mrs. Morel, ‘if
she holds you no more than that!’
‘It IS funny!’ he exclaimed. It worried and perplexed
him. ‘But yet—there’s so much between us now I couldn’t
give her up.’
‘You know best,’ said Mrs. Morel. ‘But if it is as you say,
I wouldn’t call it LOVE—at any rate, it doesn’t look much
like it.’
‘Oh, I don’t know, mother. She’s an orphan, and—-‘
They never came to any sort of conclusion. He seemed
puzzled and rather fretted. She was rather reserved. All his
strength and money went in keeping this girl. He could
scarcely afford to take his mother to Nottingham when he
came over.
Paul’s wages had been raised at Christmas to ten shil-
lings, to his great joy. He was quite happy at Jordan’s, but his
health suffered from the long hours and the confinement.

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