Page 300 - sons-and-lovers

on his forehead.
He lay quite still, almost unable to move. His body was
somewhere discarded.
‘Why not? Are you tired?’
‘Yes, and it wears you out.’
He laughed shortly, realising.
‘Yet you always make me like it,’ he said.
‘I don’t wish to,’ she said, very low.
‘Not when you’ve gone too far, and you feel you can’t
bear it. But your unconscious self always asks it of me. And
I suppose I want it.’
He went on, in his dead fashion:
‘If only you could want ME, and not want what I can reel
off for you! ‘
‘I!’ she cried bitterly—‘I! Why, when would you let me
take you?’
‘Then it’s my fault,’ he said, and, gathering himself
together, he got up and began to talk trivialities. He felt in-
substantial. In a vague way he hated her for it. And he knew
he was as much to blame himself. This, however, did not
prevent his hating her.
One evening about this time he had walked along the
home road with her. They stood by the pasture leading
down to the wood, unable to part. As the stars came out
the clouds closed. They had glimpses of their own constel-
lation, Orion, towards the west. His jewels glimmered for a
moment, his dog ran low, struggling with difficulty through
the spume of cloud.
Orion was for them chief in significance among the