He spoke to his uncle and aunt that night.
"Uncle," he said, "Anna and me think of getting married."
"Oh ay!" said Brangwen.
"But how, you have no money?" said the mother.
The youth went pale. He hated these words. But he was like a
gleaming, bright pebble, something bright and inalterable. He
did not think. He sat there in his hard brightness, and did not
speak.
"Have you mentioned it to your own mother?" asked
Brangwen.
"No--I'll tell her on Saturday."
"You'll go and see her?"
"Yes."
There was a long pause.
"And what are you going to marry on--your pound a
week?"
Again the youth went pale, as if the spirit were being
injured in him.
"I don't know," he said, looking at his uncle with his bright
inhuman eyes, like a hawk's.
Brangwen stirred in hatred.
"It needs knowing," he said.
"I shall have the money later on," said the nephew. "I will
raise some now, and pay it back then."
"Oh ay!--And why this desperate hurry? She's a child of
eighteen, and you're a boy of twenty. You're neither of you of
age to do as you like yet."
Will Brangwen ducked his head and looked at his uncle with
swift, mistrustful eyes, like a caged hawk.
"What does it matter how old she is, and how old I am?" he
said. "What's the difference between me now and when I'm
thirty?"
"A big difference, let us hope."
"But you have no experience--you have no experience, and
no money. Why do you want to marry, without experience or
money?" asked the aunt.
"What experience do I want, Aunt?" asked the boy.
And if Brangwen's heart had not been hard and intact with
anger, like a precious stone, he would have agreed.
Will Brangwen went home strange and untouched. He felt he
could not alter from what he was fixed upon, his will was set.
To alter it he must be destroyed. And he would not be destroyed.
He had no money. But he would get some from somewhere, it did
not matter. He lay awake for many hours, hard and clear and
unthinking, his soul crystallizing more inalterably. Then he
went fast asleep.
It was as if his soul had turned into a hard crystal. He
might tremble and quiver and suffer, it did not alter.
The next morning Tom Brangwen, inhuman with anger spoke to
Anna.
"What's this about wanting to get married?" he said.
She stood, paling a little, her dark eyes springing to the
hostile, startled look of a savage thing that will defend
itself, but trembles with sensitiveness.
"I do," she said, out of her unconsciousness.
His anger rose, and he would have liked to break her.
"You do-you do-and what for?" he sneered with contempt. The
old, childish agony, the blindness that could recognize nobody,
the palpitating antagonism as of a raw, helpless, undefended
thing came back on her.