“It has spoiled the day for me,” she answered, “or almost, for nothing could really spoil it.”
She walked on and he stood still for a moment. Then he ran after her.
“Did you . . . did you hate me then?”
“No, I didn’t hate you. I hated myself more because I can’t say what I feel.”
“If you don’t love me like that,” he said, “I love you all the same. I must see you often—always. I can’t live, I can’t work, if you don’t let me see you. . . . No. That isn’t true. I shall work whatever happens.”
How she loved his honesty! He was making no attempt to creep behind her defences. They had baffled him, and he counted his wounds cheerfully.
“If you don’t love me like that,” he went on excitedly, “it doesn’t make any difference. You are my love all the same. You are in all my thoughts, in every drop of my blood, and you can do with me as you will. If you don’t love me like that I will never touch you. I can understand your not wanting to touch me, because I am dirty. I am dirty in my soul. I will never touch you. I promise that I will never touch you, and what you do not like in me you shall never see. . . .”
She broke down, and burst into an unrestrained fit of weeping. Why could she not make clear to him, to herself, what she felt so clearly? . . . Oh! She knew she ought to tell him to go, to spare him all the suffering that he must endure, but also she knew by the measure of her need for him how sorely he must need her. Their need of each other was too profound, too strong, too passionate, easily to find its way to surface life, nor could it be satisfied with sweets too easily attained. . . . She must wait. To leave him or to surrender to him would be a betrayal of that high mystery wherein they had their spiritual meeting.
“I shall win,” she said to herself, “I shall win. I know I shall win.”
And she amazed him with her sudden lightness of heart. She laughed and told him how solemnly Clowes was taking it all, and how the loose-tongued busybodies were talking. . . . As if it mattered what they said! He mattered more than all of them, because they took easily what was next to hand and grew fat on it, while he fought his way upward step by step and was never satisfied, and would fight his way always step by step with bloody pains and suffering.