Page 483 - sons-and-lovers

‘You don’t approve,’ he finished.
‘And do you expect me to?’ she answered coldly.
‘Yes!—yes!—if you’d anything about you, you’d be glad!
Do you WANT to see her?’
‘I said I did.’
‘Then I’ll bring her—shall I bring her here?’
‘You please yourself.’
‘Then I WILL bring her here—one Sunday—to tea. If you
think a horrid thing about her, I shan’t forgive you.’
His mother laughed.
‘As if it would make any difference!’ she said. He knew
he had won.
‘Oh, but it feels so fine, when she’s there! She’s such a
queen in her way.’
Occasionally he still walked a little way from chapel with
Miriam and Edgar. He did not go up to the farm. She, how-
ever, was very much the same with him, and he did not feel
embarrassed in her presence. One evening she was alone
when he accompanied her. They began by talking books: it
was their unfailing topic. Mrs. Morel had said that his and
Miriam’s affair was like a fire fed on books—if there were
no more volumes it would die out. Miriam, for her part,
boasted that she could read him like a book, could place
her finger any minute on the chapter and the line. He, easily
taken in, believed that Miriam knew more about him than
anyone else. So it pleased him to talk to her about himself,
like the simplest egoist. Very soon the conversation drifted
to his own doings. It flattered him immensely that he was of
such supreme interest.

Sons and Lovers