Page 340 - sons-and-lovers

torment.
‘You know,’ he said at length, rather wearily—‘you
know—we’d better break off.’
It was what she dreaded. Swiftly everything seemed to
darken before her eyes.
‘Why!’ she murmured. ‘What has happened?’
‘Nothing has happened. We only realise where we are.
It’s no good—-‘
She waited in silence, sadly, patiently. It was no good be-
ing impatient with him. At any rate, he would tell her now
what ailed him.
‘We agreed on friendship,’ he went on in a dull, monot-
onous voice. ‘How often HAVE we agreed for friendship!
And yet—it neither stops there, nor gets anywhere else.’
He was silent again. She brooded. What did he mean? He
was so wearying. There was something he would not yield.
Yet she must be patient with him.
‘I can only give friendship—it’s all I’m capable of—it’s a
flaw in my make-up. The thing overbalances to one side—I
hate a toppling balance. Let us have done.’
There was warmth of fury in his last phrases. He meant
she loved him more than he her. Perhaps he could not love
her. Perhaps she had not in herself that which he wanted. It
was the deepest motive of her soul, this self-mistrust. It was
so deep she dared neither realise nor acknowledge. Perhaps
she was deficient. Like an infinitely subtle shame, it kept her
always back. If it were so, she would do without him. She
would never let herself want him. She would merely see.
‘But what has happened?’ she said.