Women in Love

'Isn't it rather dangerous, the way you drive?' she asked him.

'No, it isn't dangerous,' he said. And then, after a pause: 'Don't you

like the yellow ring at all?' It was a squarish topaz set in a frame of steel, or some other similar

mineral, finely wrought.

'Yes,' she said, 'I do like it. But why did you buy these rings?' 'I wanted them. They are second-hand.' 'You bought them for yourself?' 'No. Rings look wrong on my hands.' 'Why did you buy them then?' 'I bought them to give to you.' 'But why? Surely you ought to give them to Hermione! You belong to

her.' He did not answer. She remained with the jewels shut in her hand. She

wanted to try them on her fingers, but something in her would not let

her. And moreover, she was afraid her hands were too large, she shrank

from the mortification of a failure to put them on any but her little

finger. They travelled in silence through the empty lanes.

Driving in a motor-car excited her, she forgot his presence even.

'Where are we?' she asked suddenly.

'Not far from Worksop.' 'And where are we going?' 'Anywhere.' It was the answer she liked.

She opened her hand to look at the rings. They gave her SUCH pleasure,

as they lay, the three circles, with their knotted jewels, entangled in

her palm. She would have to try them on. She did so secretly, unwilling

to let him see, so that he should not know her finger was too large for

them. But he saw nevertheless. He always saw, if she wanted him not to.

It was another of his hateful, watchful characteristics.

Only the opal, with its thin wire loop, would go on her ring finger.

And she was superstitious. No, there was ill-portent enough, she would

not accept this ring from him in pledge.

'Look,' she said, putting forward her hand, that was half-closed and

shrinking. 'The others don't fit me.' He looked at the red-glinting, soft stone, on her over-sensitive skin.

'Yes,' he said.

'But opals are unlucky, aren't they?' she said wistfully.

'No. I prefer unlucky things. Luck is vulgar. Who wants what LUCK would

bring? I don't.' 'But why?' she laughed.

And, consumed with a desire to see how the other rings would look on

her hand, she put them on her little finger.

'They can be made a little bigger,' he said.

'Yes,' she replied, doubtfully. And she sighed. She knew that, in

accepting the rings, she was accepting a pledge. Yet fate seemed more

than herself. She looked again at the jewels. They were very beautiful

to her eyes-not as ornament, or wealth, but as tiny fragments of

loveliness.