Page 452 - sons-and-lovers

I decided you had made up your mind to have her, so I said
nothing, and should have said nothing. But I say as I have
always said, I DON’T think she is suited to you.’
‘On Sunday I break off,’ he said, smelling the pink. He
put the flower in his mouth. Unthinking, he bared his teeth,
closed them on the blossom slowly, and had a mouthful of
petals. These he spat into the fire, kissed his mother, and
went to bed.
On Sunday he went up to the farm in the early afternoon.
He had written Miriam that they would walk over the fields
to Hucknall. His mother was very tender with him. He said
nothing. But she saw the effort it was costing. The peculiar
set look on his face stilled her.
‘Never mind, my son,’ she said. ‘You will be so much bet-
ter when it is all over. ‘
Paul glanced swiftly at his mother in surprise and re-
sentment. He did not want sympathy.
Miriam met him at the lane-end. She was wearing a new
dress of figured muslin that had short sleeves. Those short
sleeves, and Miriam’s brown-skinned arms beneath them—
such pitiful, resigned arms—gave him so much pain that
they helped to make him cruel. She had made herself look so
beautiful and fresh for him. She seemed to blossom for him
alone. Every time he looked at her—a mature young woman
now, and beautiful in her new dress—it hurt so much that
his heart seemed almost to be bursting with the restraint he
put on it. But he had decided, and it was irrevocable.
On the hills they sat down, and he lay with his head in
her lap, whilst she fingered his hair. She knew that ‘he was

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