"Yes," she said. All the time she felt that she loved him because they were both suffering and in a kind of danger from each other which he was unable to see. She loved him because she was the only person who could protect him from herself. She was oppressed by her accurate awareness of him: of his hot flushed face close to hers, the shape of his nose, the pores of his skin, the beard in his cheeks, the irregular contour of his head matted with dark curls, his ears that she thought ugly with the tufts of hair that grew above their lobes, his neck which was short and white and a little thick, and his hands, hairy and at the same time womanish. Already she knew him so intimately that it gave her a sense of guilt toward him. Her recognition of him was so cruel, and he seemed unmindful of it.
When she had reassured him that she loved him, he drew her down beside him on the couch with the black and gold cover. He wanted to make tea for her and to show her some drawings that had been sent to him for his judgment.
She knew that while he talked he was on his guard before her. It seemed ugly to her that they were afraid of each other.
The drawings, by an unknown artist, were very delicate, indicated by a few lines on what appeared to her a vast page. It humiliated her to recognize that she did not understand the things he was interested in. To admit, even inwardly, that something fine was beyond her awoke in her an arrogance of self-contempt. I'm only fit for one need, she said to herself. Then, aloud, "They are very subtle and wonderful, Dudley. Much too fine, I think, for me to appreciate. I really don't want any tea." And she gazed at him hatefully as though he had hurt her.
Feeling herself so much less than he, even in this one thing, made her hard again. She stretched her hands up to him. "Kiss me!" The frankness and kindness were gone out of her eyes.
He was startled by the ugly unexpected look, and his own eyes grew sensual and moist as he sank beside her on his knees.
She drew his head against her breast and between her palms she could feel his pulses, heavy and labored. Each found at the moment something loathsome in caressing the other; but it was only when they despised each other that their emotions were completely released.
It was growing dusk. The cold pale day outside became suddenly hectic with color. Through the windows at the back of the room Julia could see the black roof of the factory across the courtyard and the shell-pink stain that came into the sky above it. The heavy masses of buildings were glowing shadows. The room was filled with pearl-colored reflections.
Dudley watched her as she lifted her hair in a long coil and pinned it against her head.