Page 539 - sons-and-lovers

got him. All the time he whistled softly and persistently to
himself. She listened, feeling she could learn more from
his whistling than from his speech. It was a sad dissatis-
fied tune—a tune that made her feel he would not stay with
her. She walked on in silence. When they came to the swing
bridge he sat down on the great pole, looking at the stars in
the water. He was a long way from her. She had been think-
ing.
‘Will you always stay at Jordan’s?’ she asked.
‘No,’ he answered without reflecting. ‘No; I s’ll leave Not-
tingham and go abroad—soon.’
‘Go abroad! What for?’
‘I dunno! I feel restless.’
‘But what shall you do?’
‘I shall have to get some steady designing work, and
some sort of sale for my pictures first,’ he said. ‘I am gradu-
ally making my way. I know I am.’
‘And when do you think you’ll go?’
‘I don’t know. I shall hardly go for long, while there’s my
mother.’
‘You couldn’t leave her?’
‘Not for long.’
She looked at the stars in the black water. They lay very
white and staring. It was an agony to know he would leave
her, but it was almost an agony to have him near her.
‘And if you made a nice lot of money, what would you
do?’ she asked.
‘Go somewhere in a pretty house near London with my
mother.’

Sons and Lovers