Page 243 - sons-and-lovers

‘All right,’ he answered, throwing the book on the table
and lighting a cigarette. Then, after a while, he went back to
her repentant. So the lessons went. He was always either in
a rage or very gentle.
‘What do you tremble your SOUL before it for?’ he cried.
‘You don’t learn algebra with your blessed soul. Can’t you
look at it with your clear simple wits?’
Often, when he went again into the kitchen, Mrs. Leivers
would look at him reproachfully, saying:
‘Paul, don’t be so hard on Miriam. She may not be quick,
but I’m sure she tries.’
‘I can’t help it,’ he said rather pitiably. ‘I go off like it.’
‘You don’t mind me, Miriam, do you?’ he asked of the
girl later.
‘No,’ she reassured him in her beautiful deep tones—‘no,
I don’t mind.’
‘Don’t mind me; it’s my fault.’
But, in spite of himself, his blood began to boil with her.
It was strange that no one else made him in such fury. He
flared against her. Once he threw the pencil in her face.
There was a silence. She turned her face slightly aside.
‘I didn’t—-’ he began, but got no farther, feeling weak in
all his bones. She never reproached him or was angry with
him. He was often cruelly ashamed. But still again his anger
burst like a bubble surcharged; and still, when he saw her
eager, silent, as it were, blind face, he felt he wanted to throw
the pencil in it; and still, when he saw her hand trembling
and her mouth parted with suffering, his heart was scalded
with pain for her. And because of the intensity to which she

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