Page 422 - sons-and-lovers

They both strove to keep their voices steady.
‘I believe he loves you,’ he said.
‘It looks like it,’ she replied.
He wanted to take his hand away, and could not. She
saved him by removing her own. After a silence, he began
again:
‘Did you leave him out of count all along?’
‘He left me,’ she said.
‘And I suppose he couldn’t MAKE himself mean every-
thing to you?’
‘He tried to bully me into it.’
But the conversation had got them both out of their
depth. Suddenly Paul jumped down.
‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s go and get some tea.’
They found a cottage, where they sat in the cold parlour.
She poured out his tea. She was very quiet. He felt she had
withdrawn again from him. After tea, she stared broodingly
into her tea-cup, twisting her wedding ring all the time. In
her abstraction she took the ring off her finger, stood it up,
and spun it upon the table. The gold became a diaphanous,
glittering globe. It fell, and the ring was quivering upon the
table. She spun it again and again. Paul watched, fascinat-
ed.
But she was a married woman, and he believed in simple
friendship. And he considered that he was perfectly hon-
ourable with regard to her. It was only a friendship between
man and woman, such as any civilised persons might have.
He was like so many young men of his own age. Sex had
become so complicated in him that he would have denied

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