There was in it some truth that, in spite of her bitterness, she could not help registering. She knew she felt in a sort of bondage to him, which she hated because she could not control it. She hated her love for him from the moment it grew too strong for her. And, deep down, she had hated him because she loved him 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 less each 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 was over 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—clean and 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 leaving her 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 been one 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 fighting me 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 despised himself—denied that their love had ever been love. “He had always fought away from her?” Then it had been monstrous. There had never been anything really between them; all the time he had been imagining something where there was nothing. And she had 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 bottom of her!
He sat silent in bitterness. At last the whole affair appeared in 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 you could 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 marry one such. They would never fight you off.”
“Thank you!” she said. “But don't advise me to marry someone else 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 of giving one. Their eight years of friendship and love, THE eight years 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 then it 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 help that it's failed.”
“It has failed because you want something else.”
“It would have failed whether or not. YOU never believed in me.”
She laughed strangely.
He sat in silence. He was full of a feeling that she had deceived 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 had despised him whilst he thought she worshipped him. She should have told 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 were a 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 was hard against her.
She sat full of bitterness. She had known—oh, well she had known! All the time he was away from her she had summed him 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 bondage for her? Why was it the movement of his arm stirred her as nothing else 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 was not 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 his new 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 him thereto—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—never should be, whatever happened. I will write to you now and again. You please yourself.”
“I
