Page 454 - sons-and-lovers

‘How many times have you offered to marry me, and I
wouldn’t?’
‘I know; but I want us to break off.’
There was silence for a moment or two, while he dug vi-
ciously at the earth. She bent her head, pondering. He was
an unreasonable child. He was like an infant which, when
it has drunk its fill, throws away and smashes the cup.
She looked at him, feeling she could get hold of him and
WRING some consistency out of him. But she was helpless.
Then she cried:
‘I have said you were only fourteen—you are only
FOUR!’
He still dug at the earth viciously. He heard.
‘You are a child of four,’ she repeated in her anger.
He did not answer, but said in his heart: ‘All right; if I’m a
child of four, what do you want me for? I don’t want another
mother.’ But he said nothing to her, and there was silence.
‘And have you told your people?’ she asked.
‘I have told my mother.’
There was another long interval of silence.
‘Then what do you WANT?’ she asked.
‘Why, I want us to separate. We have lived on each other
all these years; now let us stop. I will go my own way with-
out you, and you will go your way without me. You will have
an independent life of your own then.’
There was in it some truth that, in spite of her bitter-
ness, she could not help registering. She knew she felt in a
sort of bondage to him, which she hated because she could
not control it. She hated her love for him from the moment