Breaking off a pink, he suddenly went indoors.
"Come, my boy," said his mother. "I'm sure it's time you wentto bed."
He stood with the pink against his lips.
"I shall break off with Miriam, mother," he answered calmly.
She looked up at him over her spectacles. He was staring backat her, unswerving. She met his eyes for a moment, then took offher glasses. He was white. The male was up in him, dominant. She did not want to see him too clearly.
"But I thought---" she began.
"Well," he answered, "I don't love her. I don't want to marryher--so I shall have done."
"But," exclaimed his mother, amazed, "I thought lately youhad made up your mind to have her, and so I said nothing."
"I had--I wanted to--but now I don't want. It's no good. I shall break off on Sunday. I ought to, oughtn't I?"
"You know best. You know I said so long ago."
"I can't help that now. I shall break off on Sunday."
"Well," said his mother, "I think it will be best. But latelyI decided you had made up your mind to have her, so I said nothing,and should have said nothing. But I say as I have always said,I DON'T think she is suited to you."
"On Sunday I break off," he said, smelling the pink. He put the flower in his mouth. Unthinking, he bared his teeth,closed them on the blossom slowly, and had a mouthful of petals. These he spat into the fire, kissed his mother, and went to bed.
On Sunday he went up to the farm in the early afternoon. He had written Miriam that they would walk over the fields to Hucknall. His mother was very tender with him. He said nothing. But shesaw the effort it was costing. The peculiar set look on his facestilled her.
"Never mind, my son," she said. "You will be so much betterwhen it is all over. "
Paul glanced swiftly at his mother in surprise and resentment. He did not want sympathy.
Miriam met him at the lane-end. She was wearing a new dressof figured muslin that had short sleeves. Those short sleeves,and Miriam's brown-skinned arms beneath them--such pitiful, resignedarms--gave him so much pain that they helped to make him cruel. She had made herself look so beautiful and fresh for him. She seemedto blossom for him alone. Every time he looked at her--a mature youngwoman now, and beautiful in her new dress--it hurt so much that hisheart seemed almost to be bursting with the restraint he put on it. But he had decided, and it was irrevocable.
On the hills they sat down, and he lay with his head in her lap,whilst she fingered his hair. She knew that "he was not there,"as she put it. Often, when she had him with her, she looked for him,and could not find him. But this afternoon she was not prepared.
It was nearly five o'clock when he told her. They were sittingon the bank of a stream, where the lip of turf hung over a hollowbank of yellow earth, and he was hacking away with a stick, as hedid when he was perturbed and cruel.
"I have been thinking," he said, "we ought to break off."
"Why?" she cried in surprise.
"Because it's no good going on."
"Why is it no good?"
"It isn't. I don't want to marry. I don't want ever to marry. And if we're not going to marry, it's no good going on."
"But why do you say this now?"
"Because I've made up my mind."
"And what about these last months, and the things you toldme then?"
"I can't help it! I don't want to go on."
"You don't want any more of me?"
"I want us to break off--you be free of me, I free of you."
"And what about these last months?"
"I don't know. I've not told you anything but what I thoughtwas true."
"Then why are you different now?"
"I'm not--I'm the same--only I know it's no good going on."
"You haven't told me why it's no good."
"Because I don't want to go on--and I don't want to marry."
"How many times have you offered to marry me, and I wouldn't?"
"I know; but I want us to break off."
There was silence for a moment or two, while he dug viciously atthe earth. She bent her head, pondering. He was an unreasonable child. He was like an infant which, when it has drunk its fill, throws awayand smashes the cup. She looked at him, feeling she could get holdof him and WRING some consistency out of him. But she was helpless. Then she cried:
"I have said you were only fourteen--you are only FOUR!"
He still dug at the earth viciously. He heard.
"You are a child of four," she repeated in her anger.
He did not answer, but said in his heart: "All right;if I'm a child of four, what do you want me for? I don't wantanother mother." But he said nothing to her, and there was silence.
"And have you told your people?" she asked.
"I have told my mother."
There was another long interval of silence.
"Then what do you WANT?" she asked.
"Why, I want us to separate. We have lived on each other allthese years; now let us stop. I will go my own way without you,and you will go your way without me. You will have an independentlife of your own then."
There was in it some truth that, in spite of her bitterness,she could not help registering. She knew she felt in a sort ofbondage to him, which she hated because she could not control it. She hated her love for him from the moment it grew too strongfor her. And, deep down, she had hated him because she lovedhim and he dominated her. She had resisted his domination. She had fought to keep herself free of him in the last issue. And she was free of him, even more than he of her.
"And," he continued, "we shall always be more or lesseach other's work. You have done a lot for me, I for you. Now let us start and live by ourselves."
"What do you want to do?" she asked.
"Nothing--only to be free," he answered.
She, however, knew in her heart that Clara's influence wasover him to liberate him. But she said nothing.
"And what have I to tell my mother?" she asked.
"I told my mother," he answered, "that I was breaking off--cleanand altogether."
"I shall not tell them at home," she said.
Frowning, "You please yourself," he said.
He knew he had landed her in a nasty hole, and was leavingher in the lurch. It angered him.
"Tell them you wouldn't and won't marry me, and have broken off,"he said. "It's true enough."
She bit her finger moodily. She thought over their whole affair. She had known it would come to this; she had seen it all along. It chimed with her bitter expectation.
"Always--it has always been so!" she cried. "It has beenone long battle between us--you fighting away from me."
It came from her unawares, like a flash of lightning. The man's heart stood still. Was this how she saw it?
"But we've had SOME perfect hours, SOME perfect times,when we were together!" he pleaded.
"Never!" she cried; "never! It has always been you fightingme off."
"Not always--not at first!" he pleaded.
"Always, from the very beginning--always the same!"
She had finished, but she had done enough. He sat aghast. He had wanted to say: "It has been good, but it is at an end." And she--she whose love he had believed in when he had despisedhimself--denied that their love had ever been love. "He hadalways fought away from her?" Then it had been monstrous. There had never been anything really between them; all the timehe had been imagining something where there was nothing. And shehad known. She had known so much, and had told him so little. She had known all the time. All the time this was at the bottomof her!
He sat silent in bitterness. At last the whole affair appearedin a cynical aspect to him. She had really played with him,not he with her. She had hidden all her condemnation from him,had flattered him, and despised him. She despised him now. He grew intellectual and cruel.
"You ought to marry a man who worships you," he said; "then youcould do as you liked with him. Plenty of men will worship you,if you get on the private side of their natures. You ought to marryone such. They would never fight you off."
"Thank you!" she said. "But don't advise me to marry someoneelse any more. You've done it before."
"Very well," he said; "I will say no more."
He sat still, feeling as if he had had a blow, instead ofgiving one. Their eight years of friendship and love, THE eightyears of his life, were nullified.
"When did you think of this?" she asked.
"I thought definitely on Thursday night."
"I knew it was coming," she said.
That pleased him bitterly. "Oh, very well! If she knew thenit doesn't come as a surprise to her," he thought.
"And have you said anything to Clara?" she asked.
"No; but I shall tell her now."
There was a silence.
"Do you remember the things you said this time last year,in my grandmother's house--nay last month even?"
"Yes," he said; "I do! And I meant them! I can't helpthat it's failed."
"It has failed because you want something else."
"It would have failed whether or not. YOU never believedin me."
She laughed strangely.
He sat in silence. He was full of a feeling that she haddeceived him. She had despised him when he thought she worshipped him. She had let him say wrong things, and had not contradicted him. She had let him fight alone. But it stuck in his throat that she haddespised him whilst he thought she worshipped him. She should havetold him when she found fault with him. She had not played fair. He hated her. All these years she had treated him as if he werea hero, and thought of him secretly as an infant, a foolish child. Then why had she left the foolish child to his folly? His heart washard against her.
She sat full of bitterness. She had known--oh, well shehad known! All the time he was away from her she had summedhim up, seen his littleness, his meanness, and his folly. Even she had guarded her soul against him. She was not overthrown,not prostrated, not even much hurt. She had known. Only why,as he sat there, had he still this strange dominance over her? His very movements fascinated her as if she were hypnotised by him. Yet he was despicable, false, inconsistent, and mean. Why this bondagefor her? Why was it the movement of his arm stirred her as nothingelse in the world could? Why was she fastened to him? Why, even now,if he looked at her and commanded her, would she have to obey? She would obey him in his trifling commands. But once he was obeyed,then she had him in her power, she knew, to lead him where she would. She was sure of herself. Only, this new influence! Ah, he wasnot a man! He was a baby that cries for the newest toy. And all the attachment of his soul would not keep him. Very well,he would have to go. But he would come back when he had tired of hisnew sensation.
He hacked at the earth till she was fretted to death. She rose. He sat flinging lumps of earth in the stream.
"We will go and have tea here?" he asked.
"Yes," she answered.
They chattered over irrelevant subjects during tea. He held forth on the love of ornament--the cottage parlour moved himthereto--and its connection with aesthetics. She was cold and quiet. As they walked home, she asked:
"And we shall not see each other?"
"No--or rarely," he answered.
"Nor write?" she asked, almost sarcastically.
"As you will," he answered. "We're not strangers--nevershould be, whatever happened. I will write to you now and again. You please yourself."
"I see!" she answered cuttingly.
But he was at that stage at which nothing else hurts. He had made a great cleavage in his life. He had had a great shockwhen she had told him their love had been always a conflict. Nothing more mattered. If it never had been much, there was no needto make a fuss that it was ended.
He left her at the lane-end. As she went home, solitary,in her new frock, having her people to face at the other end,he stood still with shame and pain in the highroad, thinking ofthe suffering he caused her.
In the reaction towards restoring his self-esteem, he wentinto the Willow Tree for a drink. There were four girls who hadbeen out for the day, drinking a modest glass of port. They hadsome chocolates on the table. Paul sat near with his whisky. He noticed the girls whispering and nudging. Presently one,a bonny dark hussy, leaned to him and said:
"Have a chocolate?"
The others laughed loudly at her impudence.
"All right," said Paul. "Give me a hard one--nut. I don'tlike creams."
"Here you are, then," said the girl; "here's an almond for you."
She held the sweet between her fingers. He opened his mouth. She popped it in, and blushed.
"You ARE nice!" he said.
"Well," she answered, "we thought you looked overcast,and they dared me offer you a chocolate."
"I don't mind if I have another--another sort," he said.
And presently they were all laughing together.
It was nine o'clock when he got home, falling dark. He enteredthe house in silence. His mother, who had been waiting,rose anxiously.
"I told her," he said.
"I'm glad," replied the mother, with great relief.
He hung up his cap wearily.
"I said we'd have done altogether," he said.
"That's right, my son," said the mother. "It's hard for her now,but best in the long run. I know. You weren't suited for her."
He laughed shakily as he sat down.
"I've had such a lark with some girls in a pub," he said.
His mother looked at him. He had forgotten Miriam now. He toldher about the girls in the Willow Tree. Mrs. Morel looked at him. It seemed unreal, his gaiety. At the back of it was too much horrorand misery.
