sit there telling him these things? She was his wife, what right
had she to speak to him like this, as if she were a
stranger.

"I didn't," he said. "I want no woman."

"Yes, you would like to be like Alfred."

His silence was one of angry frustration. He was astonished.
He had told her of his visit to Wirksworth, but briefly, without
interest, he thought.

As she sat with her strange dark face turned towards him, her
eyes watched him, inscrutable, casting him up. He began to
oppose her. She was again the active unknown facing him. Must he
admit her? He resisted involuntarily.

"Why should you want to find a woman who is more to you than
me?" she said.

The turbulence raged in his breast.

"I don't," he said.

"Why do you?" she repeated. "Why do you want to deny me?"

Suddenly, in a flash, he saw she might be lonely, isolated,
unsure. She had seemed to him the utterly certain, satisfied,
absolute, excluding him. Could she need anything?

"Why aren't you satisfied with me?--I'm not satisfied
with you. Paul used to come to me and take me like a man does.
You only leave me alone or take me like your cattle, quickly, to
forget me again--so that you can forget me again."

"What am I to remember about you?" said Brangwen.

"I want you to know there is somebody there besides
yourself."

"Well, don't I know it?"

"You come to me as if it was for nothing, as if I was nothing
there. When Paul came to me, I was something to him--a
woman, I was. To you I am nothing--it is like
cattle--or nothing----"

"You make me feel as if I was nothing," he said.

They were silent. She sat watching him. He could not move,
his soul was seething and chaotic. She turned to her sewing
again. But the sight of her bent before him held him and would
not let him be. She was a strange, hostile, dominant thing. Yet
not quite hostile. As he sat he felt his limbs were strong and
hard, he sat in strength.

She was silent for a long time, stitching. He was aware,
poignantly, of the round shape of her head, very intimate,
compelling. She lifted her head and sighed. The blood burned in
him, her voice ran to him like fire.

"Come here," she said, unsure.

For some moments he did not move. Then he rose slowly and
went across the hearth. It required an almost deathly effort of
volition, or of acquiescence. He stood before her and looked
down at her. Her face was shining again, her eyes were shining
again like terrible laughter. It wa