Women in Love

She saw that his boots were all clayey, even his trousers were

plastered with clay. And she wondered if he had made footprints all the

way up. He was a very strange figure, standing in her bedroom, near the

tossed bed.

'Why have you come?' she asked, almost querulous.

'I wanted to,' he replied.

And this she could see from his face. It was fate.

'You are so muddy,' she said, in distaste, but gently.

He looked down at his feet.

'I was walking in the dark,' he replied. But he felt vividly elated.

There was a pause. He stood on one side of the tumbled bed, she on the

other. He did not even take his cap from his brows.

'And what do you want of me,' she challenged.

He looked aside, and did not answer. Save for the extreme beauty and

mystic attractiveness of this distinct, strange face, she would have

sent him away. But his face was too wonderful and undiscovered to her.

It fascinated her with the fascination of pure beauty, cast a spell on

her, like nostalgia, an ache.

'What do you want of me?' she repeated in an estranged voice.

He pulled off his cap, in a movement of dream-liberation, and went

across to her. But he could not touch her, because she stood barefoot

in her night-dress, and he was muddy and damp. Her eyes, wide and large

and wondering, watched him, and asked him the ultimate question.

'I came--because I must,' he said. 'Why do you ask?' She looked at him in doubt and wonder.

'I must ask,' she said.

He shook his head slightly.

'There is no answer,' he replied, with strange vacancy.

There was about him a curious, and almost godlike air of simplicity and

native directness. He reminded her of an apparition, the young Hermes.

'But why did you come to me?' she persisted.

'Because--it has to be so. If there weren't you in the world, then I

shouldn't be in the world, either.' She stood looking at him, with large, wide, wondering, stricken eyes.

His eyes were looking steadily into hers all the time, and he seemed

fixed in an odd supernatural steadfastness. She sighed. She was lost

now. She had no choice.

'Won't you take off your boots,' she said. 'They must be wet.' He dropped his cap on a chair, unbuttoned his overcoat, lifting up his

chin to unfasten the throat buttons. His short, keen hair was ruffled.

He was so beautifully blond, like wheat. He pulled off his overcoat.

Quickly he pulled off his jacket, pulled loose his black tie, and was

unfastening his studs, which were headed each with a pearl. She

listened, watching, hoping no one would hear the starched linen

crackle. It seemed to snap like pistol shots.