etween them. He waited.
The same iron rigidity, as if the world were made of steel,
possessed her again. It was no use turning with flesh and blood
to this arrangement of forged metal.

Quickly, her imagination adjusted itself to the
situation.

"Have you an appointment in India?" she asked.

"Yes--I have just the six months' leave."

"Will you like being out there?"

"I think so--there's a good deal of social life, and
plenty going on--hunting, polo--and always a good
horse--and plenty of work, any amount of work."

He was always side-tracking, always side-tracking his own
soul. She could see him so well out there, in India--one of
the governing class, superimposed upon an old civilization, lord
and master of a clumsier civilization than his own. It was his
choice. He would become again an aristocrat, invested with
authority and responsibility, having a great helpless populace
beneath him. One of the ruling class, his whole being would be
given over to the fulfilling and the executing of the better
idea of the state. And in India, there would be real work to do.
The country did need the civilization which he himself
represented: it did need his roads and bridges, and the
enlightenment of which he was part. He would go to India. But
that was not her road.

Yet she loved him, the body of him, whatever his decisions
might be. He seemed to want something of her. He was waiting for
her to decide of him. It had been decided in her long ago, when
he had kissed her first. He was her lover, though good and evil
should cease. Her will never relaxed, though her heart and soul
must be imprisoned and silenced. He waited upon her, and she
accepted him. For he had come back to her.

A glow came into his face, into his fine, smooth skin, his
eyes, gold-grey, glowed intimately to her. He burned up, he
caught fire and became splendid, royal, something like a tiger.
She caught his brilliant, burnished glamour. Her heart and her
soul were shut away fast down below, hidden. She was free of
them. She was to have her satisfaction.

She became proud and erect, like a flower, putting itself
forth in its proper strength. His warmth invigorated her. His
beauty of form, which seemed to glow out in contrast with the
rest of people, made her proud. It was like deference to her,
and made her feel as if she represented before him all the grace
and flower of humanity. She was no mere Ursula Brangwen. She was
Woman, she was the whole of