Page 457 - sons-and-lovers

ing one. Their eight years of friendship and love, THE eight
years of his life, were nullified.
‘When did you think of this?’ she asked.
‘I thought definitely on Thursday night.’
‘I knew it was coming,’ she said.
That pleased him bitterly. ‘Oh, very well! If she knew
then it doesn’t come as a surprise to her,’ he thought.
‘And have you said anything to Clara?’ she asked.
‘No; but I shall tell her now.’
There was a silence.
‘Do you remember the things you said this time last year,
in my grandmother’s house—nay last month even?’
‘Yes,’ he said; ‘I do! And I meant them! I can’t help that
it’s failed.’
‘It has failed because you want something else.’
‘It would have failed whether or not. YOU never believed
in me.’
She laughed strangely.
He sat in silence. He was full of a feeling that she had
deceived him. She had despised him when he thought she
worshipped him. She had let him say wrong things, and
had not contradicted him. She had let him fight alone. But
it stuck in his throat that she had despised him whilst he
thought she worshipped him. She should have told him
when she found fault with him. She had not played fair. He
hated her. All these years she had treated him as if he were
a hero, and thought of him secretly as an infant, a foolish
child. Then why had she left the foolish child to his folly?
His heart was hard against her.

Sons and Lovers