The Rainbow

There was a long silence, whilst his blue eyes, strangely

impersonal, looked into her eyes to seek an answer to the truth.

He was looking for the truth out of her. And she, as if

hypnotized, must answer at length.

"Yes, I am free to marry."

The expression of his eyes changed, became less impersonal,

as if he were looking almost at her, for the truth of her.

Steady and intent and eternal they were, as if they would never

change. They seemed to fix and to resolve her. She quivered,

feeling herself created, will-less, lapsing into him, into a

common will with him.

"You want me?" she said.

A pallor came over his face.

"Yes," he said.

Still there was no response and silence.

"No," she said, not of herself. "No, I don't know."

He felt the tension breaking up in him, his fists slackened,

he was unable to move. He stood there looking at her, helpless

in his vague collapse. For the moment she had become unreal to

him. Then he saw her come to him, curiously direct and as if

without movement, in a sudden flow. She put her hand to his

coat.

"Yes I want to," she said, impersonally, looking at him with

wide, candid, newly-opened eyes, opened now with supreme truth.

He went very white as he stood, and did not move, only his eyes

were held by hers, and he suffered. She seemed to see him with

her newly-opened, wide eyes, almost of a child, and with a

strange movement, that was agony to him, she reached slowly

forward her dark face and her breast to him, with a slow

insinuation of a kiss that made something break in his brain,

and it was darkness over him for a few moments.

He had her in his arms, and, obliterated, was kissing her.

And it was sheer, bleached agony to him, to break away from

himself. She was there so small and light and accepting in his

arms, like a child, and yet with such an insinuation of embrace,

of infinite embrace, that he could not bear it, he could not

stand.

He turned and looked for a chair, and keeping her still in

his arms, sat down with her close to him, to his breast. Then,

for a few seconds, he went utterly to sleep, asleep and sealed

in the darkest sleep, utter, extreme oblivion.

From which he came to gradually, always holding her warm and

close upon him, and she as utterly silent as he, involved in the

same oblivion, the fecund darkness.