Page 617 - sons-and-lovers

‘We’ve both got plenty of life in us yet to make things
fly,’ he said.
The eyes of the two men met. They exchanged one look.
Having recognised the stress of passion each in the other,
they both drank their whisky.
‘Yes, begod!’ said Dawes, breathless.
There was a pause.
‘And I don’t see,’ said Paul, ‘why you shouldn’t go on
where you left off.’
‘What—-’ said Dawes, suggestively.
‘Yes—fit your old home together again.’
Dawes hid his face and shook his head.
‘Couldn’t be done,’ he said, and looked up with an ironic
smile.
‘Why? Because you don’t want?’
‘Perhaps.’
They smoked in silence. Dawes showed his teeth as he bit
his pipe stem.
‘You mean you don’t want her?’ asked Paul.
Dawes stared up at the picture with a caustic expression
on his face.
‘I hardly know,’ he said.
The smoke floated softly up.
‘I believe she wants you,’ said Paul.
‘Do you?’ replied the other, soft, satirical, abstract.
‘Yes. She never really hitched on to me—you were always
there in the background. That’s why she wouldn’t get a di-
vorce.’
Dawes continued to stare in a satirical fashion at the pic-

1 Sons and Lovers