Page 290 - sons-and-lovers

a grudge against men.’
That was more probably one of his own reasons for liking
Mrs. Dawes, but this did not occur to him. They were silent.
There had come into his forehead a knitting of the brows
which was becoming habitual with him, particularly when
he was with Miriam. She longed to smooth it away, and she
was afraid of it. It seemed the stamp of a man who was not
her man in Paul Morel.
There were some crimson berries among the leaves in the
bowl. He reached over and pulled out a bunch.
‘If you put red berries in your hair,’ he said, ‘why would
you look like some witch or priestess, and never like a rev-
eller?’
She laughed with a naked, painful sound.
‘I don’t know,’ she said.
His vigorous warm hands were playing excitedly with
the berries.
‘Why can’t you laugh?’ he said. ‘You never laugh laugh-
ter. You only laugh when something is odd or incongruous,
and then it almost seems to hurt you.’
She bowed her head as if he were scolding her.
‘I wish you could laugh at me just for one minute—just
for one minute. I feel as if it would set something free.’
‘But’—and she looked up at him with eyes frightened
and struggling—‘I do laugh at you—I DO.’
‘Never! There’s always a kind of intensity. When you
laugh I could always cry; it seems as if it shows up your suf-
fering. Oh, you make me knit the brows of my very soul and
cogitate.’