“They are all gone to church.”
He took off his coat and hung it up. The children were peeping at him round the corner.
“Go and get undressed now, Billy and Dora,” said Ursula. “Mother will be back soon, and she’ll be disappointed if you’re not in bed.”
The children, in a sudden angelic mood, retired without a word. Birkin and Ursula went into the drawing-room.
The fire burned low. He looked at her and wondered at the luminous delicacy of her beauty, and the wide shining of her eyes. He watched from a distance, with wonder in his heart, she seemed transfigured with light.
“What have you been doing all day?” he asked her.
“Only sitting about,” she said.
He looked at her. There was a change in her. But she was separate from him. She remained apart, in a kind of brightness. They both sat silent in the soft light of the lamp. He felt he ought to go away again, he ought not to have come. Still he did not gather enough resolution to move. But he was de trop, her mood was absent and separate.
Then there came the voices of the two children calling shyly outside the door, softly, with self-excited timidity:
“Ursula! Ursula!”