Page 550 - sons-and-lovers

want to be by myself.’
‘But why?’ she said. ‘Why, even now, when we are on this
short holiday?’
‘I don’t know. Love-making stifles me in the daytime.’
‘But it needn’t be always love-making,’ she said.
‘It always is,’ he answered, ‘when you and I are together.’
She sat feeling very bitter.
‘Do you ever want to marry me?’ he asked curiously.
‘Do you me?’ she replied.
‘Yes, yes; I should like us to have children,’ he answered
slowly.
She sat with her head bent, fingering the sand.
‘But you don’t really want a divorce from Baxter, do you?’
he said.
It was some minutes before she replied.
‘No,’ she said, very deliberately; ‘I don’t think I do.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Do you feel as if you belonged to him?’
‘No; I don’t think so.’
‘What, then?’
‘I think he belongs to me,’ she replied.
He was silent for some minutes, listening to the wind
blowing over the hoarse, dark sea.
‘And you never really intended to belong to ME?’ he
said.
‘Yes, I do belong to you,’ she answered.
‘No,’ he said; ‘because you don’t want to be divorced.’
It was a knot they could not untie, so they left it, took