But she continued to look beseechingly at him, waiting for the word that might be the word of her salvation.
"Haven't you done enough already, in giving yourself to me?" he asked, seeing how she hung on his lips.
But she repeated: "What can I do? Let me do something. Oh, I wish you would hurt me, or be unkind to me!"
He tried to make her understand that he wished for no such humble adoration, that, indeed, he could not be happy under it. If either was to serve the other, it was he; he asked nothing better than to put his hands under her feet. But he could neither coax her nor laugh her out of her absorption: she had the will to self-abasement; and she remained unsatisfied, waiting for the word he would not speak.
Once or twice, during these weeks, they went out in the evening, and, in the corner of some quiet restaurant, took a festive little meal. But, for the most part, she preferred to stay at home. She was not dressed, she said, or she was tired, or it was too hot, or it had rained. And Maurice did not urge her; for, on the last occasion, the evening had been spoiled for him by the conduct of some people at a neighbouring table; they had stared at Louise, and whispered remarks about her. At home, she herself prepared the supper, moving indolently about the room, her dressing-gown dragging after her, from table to cupboard, and back again, often with a pause at his side, in which she forgot what she had set out for. Maurice disputed each trifling service with her; he could only think of Louise as made to be waited on, slow to serve herself.
"Let me do it, dearest."
She had risen anew to fetch something. Now she stood beside him, and put her arms round his neck.
"What can I do for you? Tell me what I can do," she said, and crushed his head against her breast.
He loosened her fingers, and drew her to his knee. "What do you want me to say, dear discontent? Do?—you were never meant to do anything in this world. Your hands were made to lie one on top of the other...so! Look at them! Most white and most useless!"
"There are things not made with hands," she answered obscurely. She let him do what he liked; but she kept her face turned away; and over her eyes passed a faint shadow of resignation.