The Rainbow

"You needn't stop here much longer, housekeeping," he

said.

"I like it also, here," she said. "When one has been in many

places, it is very nice here."

He was silent again at this. So close on him she lay, and yet

she answered him from so far away. But he did not mind.

"What was your own home like, when you were little?" he

asked.

"My father was a landowner," she replied. "It was near a

river."

This did not convey much to him. All was as vague as before.

But he did not care, whilst she was so close.

"I am a landowner--a little one," he said.

"Yes," she said.

He had not dared to move. He sat there with his arms round

her, her lying motionless on his breathing, and for a long time

he did not stir. Then softly, timidly, his hand settled on the

roundness of her arm, on the unknown. She seemed to lie a little

closer. A hot flame licked up from his belly to his chest.

But it was too soon. She rose, and went across the room to a

drawer, taking out a little tray-cloth. There was something

quiet and professional about her. She had been a nurse beside

her husband, both in Warsaw and in the rebellion afterwards. She

proceeded to set a tray. It was as if she ignored Brangwen. He

sat up, unable to bear a contradiction in her. She moved about

inscrutably.

Then, as he sat there, all mused and wondering, she came near

to him, looking at him with wide, grey eyes that almost smiled

with a low light. But her ugly-beautiful mouth was still unmoved

and sad. He was afraid.

His eyes, strained and roused with unusedness, quailed a

little before her, he felt himself quailing and yet he rose, as

if obedient to her, he bent and kissed her heavy, sad, wide

mouth, that was kissed, and did not alter. Fear was too strong

in him. Again he had not got her.

She turned away. The vicarage kitchen was untidy, and yet to

him beautiful with the untidiness of her and her child. Such a

wonderful remoteness there was about her, and then something in

touch with him, that made his heart knock in his chest. He stood

there and waited, suspended.

Again she came to him, as he stood in his black clothes, with

blue eyes very bright and puzzled for her, his face tensely

alive, his hair dishevelled. She came close up to him, to his

intent, black-clothed body, and laid her hand on his arm. He

remained unmoved. Her eyes, with a blackness of memory

struggling with passion, primitive and electric away at the back

of them, rejected him and absorbed him at once. But he remained

himself. He breathed with difficulty, and sweat came out at the

roots of his hair, on his forehead.