Page 621 - sons-and-lovers

‘Are you fit to start work?’
‘I’m going to start.’
‘You’ve really got a place?’
‘Yes—begin on Monday.’
‘You don’t look fit.’
‘Why don’t I?’
She looked again out of the window instead of answer-
ing.
‘And have you got lodgings in Sheffield?’
‘Yes.’
Again she looked away out of the window. The panes
were blurred with streaming rain.
‘And can you manage all right?’ she asked.
‘I s’d think so. I s’ll have to!’
They were silent when Morel returned.
‘I shall go by the four-twenty,’ he said as he entered.
Nobody answered.
‘I wish you’d take your boots off,’ he said to Clara.
‘There’s a pair of slippers of mine.’
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘They aren’t wet.’
He put the slippers near her feet. She left them there.
Morel sat down. Both the men seemed helpless, and each
of them had a rather hunted look. But Dawes now carried
himself quietly, seemed to yield himself, while Paul seemed
to screw himself up. Clara thought she had never seen him
look so small and mean. He was as if trying to get himself
into the smallest possible compass. And as he went about
arranging, and as he sat talking, there seemed something
false about him and out of tune. Watching him unknown,

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