The Rainbow

She stopped dancing, and confronted him, again lifting her

slim arms and twisting at her hair. Her nakedness hurt her,

opposed to him.

"I can do as I like in my bedroom," she cried. "Why do you

interfere with me?"

And she slipped on a dressing-gown and crouched before the

fire. He was more at ease now she was covered up. The vision of

her tormented him all the days of his life, as she had been

then, a strange, exalted thing having no relation to

himself.

After this day, the door seemed to shut on his mind. His brow

shut and became impervious. His eyes ceased to see, his hands

were suspended. Within himself his will was coiled like a beast,

hidden under the darkness, but always potent, working.

At first she went on blithely enough with him shut down

beside her. But then his spell began to take hold of her. The

dark, seething potency of him, the power of a creature that lies

hidden and exerts its will to the destruction of the

free-running creature, as the tiger lying in the darkness of the

leaves steadily enforces the fall and death of the light

creatures that drink by the waterside in the morning, gradually

began to take effect on her. Though he lay there in his darkness

and did not move, yet she knew he lay waiting for her. She felt

his will fastening on her and pulling her down, even whilst he

was silent and obscure.

She found that, in all her outgoings and her incomings, he

prevented her. Gradually she realized that she was being borne

down by him, borne down by the clinging, heavy weight of him,

that he was pulling her down as a leopard clings to a wild cow

and exhausts her and pulls her down.

Gradually she realized that her life, her freedom, was

sinking under the silent grip of his physical will. He wanted

her in his power. He wanted to devour her at leisure, to have

her. At length she realized that her sleep was a long ache and a

weariness and exhaustion, because of his will fastened upon her,

as he lay there beside her, during the night.

She realized it all, and there came a momentous pause, a

pause in her swift running, a moment's suspension in her life,

when she was lost.

Then she turned fiercely on him, and fought him. He was not

to do this to her, it was monstrous. What horrible hold did he

want to have over her body? Why did he want to drag her down,

and kill her spirit? Why did he want to deny her spirit? Why did

he deny her spirituality, hold her for a body only? And was he

to claim her carcase?

Some vast, hideous darkness he seemed to represent to

her.