Women in Love

The days went by, and she received no sign. Was he going to ignore her,

was he going to take no further notice of her secret? A dreary weight

of anxiety and acrid bitterness settled on her. And yet Ursula knew she

was only deceiving herself, and that he would proceed. She said no word

to anybody.

Then, sure enough, there came a note from him, asking if she would come

to tea with Gudrun, to his rooms in town.

'Why does he ask Gudrun as well?' she asked herself at once. 'Does he

want to protect himself, or does he think I would not go alone?' She

was tormented by the thought that he wanted to protect himself. But at

the end of all, she only said to herself: 'I don't want Gudrun to be there, because I want him to say something

more to me. So I shan't tell Gudrun anything about it, and I shall go

alone. Then I shall know.' She found herself sitting on the tram-car, mounting up the hill going

out of the town, to the place where he had his lodging. She seemed to

have passed into a kind of dream world, absolved from the conditions of

actuality. She watched the sordid streets of the town go by beneath

her, as if she were a spirit disconnected from the material universe.

What had it all to do with her? She was palpitating and formless within

the flux of the ghost life. She could not consider any more, what

anybody would say of her or think about her. People had passed out of

her range, she was absolved. She had fallen strange and dim, out of the

sheath of the material life, as a berry falls from the only world it

has ever known, down out of the sheath on to the real unknown.

Birkin was standing in the middle of the room, when she was shown in by

the landlady. He too was moved outside himself. She saw him agitated

and shaken, a frail, unsubstantial body silent like the node of some

violent force, that came out from him and shook her almost into a

swoon.

'You are alone?' he said.

'Yes--Gudrun could not come.' He instantly guessed why.

And they were both seated in silence, in the terrible tension of the

room. She was aware that it was a pleasant room, full of light and very

restful in its form--aware also of a fuchsia tree, with dangling

scarlet and purple flowers.

'How nice the fuchsias are!' she said, to break the silence.

'Aren't they! Did you think I had forgotten what I said?' A swoon went over Ursula's mind.