Page 269 - sons-and-lovers

pushed in the last pin and turned away.
‘Don’t let mater know,’ he said.
Miriam picked up her books and stood in the doorway
looking with chagrin at the beautiful sunset. She would call
for Paul no more, she said.
‘Good-evening, Mrs. Morel,’ she said, in a deferential
way. She sounded as if she felt she had no right to be there.
‘Oh, is it you, Miriam?’ replied Mrs. Morel coolly.
But Paul insisted on everybody’s accepting his friend-
ship with the girl, and Mrs. Morel was too wise to have any
open rupture.
It was not till he was twenty years old that the family
could ever afford to go away for a holiday. Mrs. Morel had
never been away for a holiday, except to see her sister, since
she had been married. Now at last Paul had saved enough
money, and they were all going. There was to be a party:
some of Annie’s friends, one friend of Paul’s, a young man
in the same office where William had previously been, and
Miriam.
It was great excitement writing for rooms. Paul and his
mother debated it endlessly between them. They wanted
a furnished cottage for two weeks. She thought one week
would be enough, but he insisted on two.
At last they got an answer from Mablethorpe, a cottage
such as they wished for thirty shillings a week. There was
immense jubilation. Paul was wild with joy for his mother’s
sake. She would have a real holiday now. He and she sat at
evening picturing what it would be like. Annie came in, and
Leonard, and Alice, and Kitty. There was wild rejoicing and

Sons and Lovers