Women in Love

'It is like a workman getting up to go to work,' thought Gudrun. 'And I

am like a workman's wife.' But an ache like nausea was upon her: a

nausea of him.

He pushed his collar and tie into his overcoat pocket. Then he sat down

and pulled on his boots. They were sodden, as were his socks and

trouser-bottoms. But he himself was quick and warm.

'Perhaps you ought to have put your boots on downstairs,' she said.

At once, without answering, he pulled them off again, and stood holding

them in his hand. She had thrust her feet into slippers, and flung a

loose robe round her. She was ready. She looked at him as he stood

waiting, his black coat buttoned to the chin, his cap pulled down, his

boots in his hand. And the passionate almost hateful fascination

revived in her for a moment. It was not exhausted. His face was so

warm-looking, wide-eyed and full of newness, so perfect. She felt old,

old. She went to him heavily, to be kissed. He kissed her quickly. She

wished his warm, expressionless beauty did not so fatally put a spell

on her, compel her and subjugate her. It was a burden upon her, that

she resented, but could not escape. Yet when she looked at his straight

man's brows, and at his rather small, well-shaped nose, and at his

blue, indifferent eyes, she knew her passion for him was not yet

satisfied, perhaps never could be satisfied. Only now she was weary,

with an ache like nausea. She wanted him gone.

They went downstairs quickly. It seemed they made a prodigious noise.

He followed her as, wrapped in her vivid green wrap, she preceded him

with the light. She suffered badly with fear, lest her people should be

roused. He hardly cared. He did not care now who knew. And she hated

this in him. One MUST be cautious. One must preserve oneself.

She led the way to the kitchen. It was neat and tidy, as the woman had

left it. He looked up at the clock--twenty minutes past five Then he

sat down on a chair to put on his boots. She waited, watching his every

movement. She wanted it to be over, it was a great nervous strain on

her.

He stood up--she unbolted the back door, and looked out. A cold, raw

night, not yet dawn, with a piece of a moon in the vague sky. She was

glad she need not go out.

'Good-bye then,' he murmured.

'I'll come to the gate,' she said.

And again she hurried on in front, to warn him of the steps. And at the

gate, once more she stood on the step whilst he stood below her.