Page 538 - sons-and-lovers

with her, as far as passion went. In the daytime he forgot
her a good deal. She was working in the same building, but
he was not aware of it. He was busy, and her existence was
of no matter to him. But all the time she was in her Spiral
room she had a sense that he was upstairs, a physical sense
of his person in the same building. Every second she expect-
ed him to come through the door, and when he came it was
a shock to her. But he was often short and offhand with her.
He gave her his directions in an official manner, keeping her
at bay. With what wits she had left she listened to him. She
dared not misunderstand or fail to remember, but it was a
cruelty to her. She wanted to touch his chest. She knew ex-
actly how his breast was shapen under the waistcoat, and
she wanted to touch it. It maddened her to hear his mechan-
ical voice giving orders about the work. She wanted to break
through the sham of it, smash the trivial coating of business
which covered him with hardness, get at the man again; but
she was afraid, and before she could feel one touch of his
warmth he was gone, and she ached again.
He knew that she was dreary every evening she did not
see him, so he gave her a good deal of his time. The days
were often a misery to her, but the evenings and the nights
were usually a bliss to them both. Then they were silent. For
hours they sat together, or walked together in the dark, and
talked only a few, almost meaningless words. But he had
her hand in his, and her bosom left its warmth in his chest,
making him feel whole.
One evening they were walking down by the canal,
and something was troubling him. She knew she had not