Page 458 - sons-and-lovers

She sat full of bitterness. She had known—oh, well she
had known! All the time he was away from her she had
summed him up, seen his littleness, his meanness, and
his folly. Even she had guarded her soul against him. She
was not overthrown, not prostrated, not even much hurt.
She had known. Only why, as he sat there, had he still this
strange dominance over her? His very movements fas-
cinated her as if she were hypnotised by him. Yet he was
despicable, false, inconsistent, and mean. Why this bond-
age for her? Why was it the movement of his arm stirred her
as nothing else in the world could? Why was she fastened to
him? Why, even now, if he looked at her and commanded
her, would she have to obey? She would obey him in his tri-
fling commands. But once he was obeyed, then she had him
in her power, she knew, to lead him where she would. She
was sure of herself. Only, this new influence! Ah, he was not
a man! He was a baby that cries for the newest toy. And all
the attachment of his soul would not keep him. Very well,
he would have to go. But he would come back when he had
tired of his new sensation.
He hacked at the earth till she was fretted to death. She
rose. He sat flinging lumps of earth in the stream.
‘We will go and have tea here?’ he asked.
‘Yes,’ she answered.
They chattered over irrelevant subjects during tea. He
held forth on the love of ornament—the cottage parlour
moved him thereto—and its connection with aesthetics.
She was cold and quiet. As they walked home, she asked:
‘And we shall not see each other?’