The Rainbow

"Is it late?" she said.

He looked at his watch.

"No--half-past eleven," he said. And he made an excuse

to go into the kitchen, leaving her standing in the room among

the disorder and the drinking-glasses.

Tilly was seated beside the fire in the kitchen, her head in

her hands. She started up when he entered.

"Why haven't you gone to bed?" he said.

"I thought I'd better stop an' lock up an' do," she said. Her

agitation quietened him. He gave her some little order, then

returned, steadied now, almost ashamed, to his wife. She stood a

moment watching him, as he moved with averted face. Then she

said: "You will be good to me, won't you?"

She was small and girlish and terrible, with a queer, wide

look in her eyes. His heart leaped in him, in anguish of love

and desire, he went blindly to her and took her in his arms.

"I want to," he said as he drew her closer and closer in. She

was soothed by the stress of his embrace, and remained quite

still, relaxed against him, mingling in to him. And he let

himself go from past and future, was reduced to the moment with

her. In which he took her and was with her and there was nothing

beyond, they were together in an elemental embrace beyond their

superficial foreignness. But in the morning he was uneasy again.

She was still foreign and unknown to him. Only, within the fear

was pride, belief in himself as mate for her. And she,

everything forgotten in her new hour of coming to life, radiated

vigour and joy, so that he quivered to touch her.

It made a great difference to him, marriage. Things became so

remote and of so little significance, as he knew the powerful

source of his life, his eyes opened on a new universe, and he

wondered in thinking of his triviality before. A new, calm

relationship showed to him in the things he saw, in the cattle

he used, the young wheat as it eddied in a wind.

And each time he returned home, he went steadily,

expectantly, like a man who goes to a profound, unknown

satisfaction. At dinner-time, he appeared in the doorway,

hanging back a moment from entering, to see if she was there. He

saw her setting the plates on the white-scrubbed table. Her arms

were slim, she had a slim body and full skirts, she had a dark,

shapely head with close-banded hair. Somehow it was her head, so

shapely and poignant, that revealed her his woman to him. As she

moved about clothed closely, full-skirted and wearing her little

silk apron, her dark hair smoothly parted, her head revealed

itself to him in all its subtle, intrinsic beauty, and he knew

she was his woman, he knew her essence, that it was his to

possess. And he seemed to live thus in contact with her, in

contact with the unknown, the unaccountable and

incalculable.