morning, and attended her
classes, flowering, and remote.

She had lunch with him in his hotel; every evening she spent
with him, either in town, at his rooms, or in the country. She
made the excuse at home of evening study for her degree. But she
paid not the slightest attention to her study.

They were both absolute and happy and calm. The fact of their
own consummate being made everything else so entirely
subordinate that they were free. The only thing they wanted, as
the days went by, was more time to themselves. They wanted the
time to be absolutely their own.

The Easter vacation was approaching. They agreed to go right
away. It would not matter if they did not come back. They were
indifferent to the actual facts.

"I suppose we ought to get married," he said, rather
wistfully. It was so magnificently free and in a deeper
world, as it was. To make public their connection would be to
put it in range with all the things which nullified him, and
from which he was for the moment entirely dissociated. If he
married he would have to assume his social self. And the thought
of assuming his social self made him at once diffident and
abstract. If she were his social wife, if she were part of that
complication of dead reality, then what had his under-life to do
with her? One's social wife was almost a material symbol.
Whereas now she was something more vivid to him than anything in
conventional life could be. She gave the complete lie to all
conventional life, he and she stood together, dark, fluid,
infinitely potent, giving the living lie to the dead whole which
contained them.

He watched her pensive, puzzled face.

"I don't think I want to marry you," she said, her brow
clouded.

It piqued him rather.

"Why not?" he asked.

"Let's think about it afterwards, shall we?" she said.

He was crossed, yet he loved her violently.

"You've got a museau, not a face," he said.

"Have I?" she cried, her face lighting up like a pure flame.
She thought she had escaped. Yet he returned--he was not
satisfied.

"Why?" he asked, "why don't you want to marry me?"

"I don't want to be with other people," she said. "I want to
be like this. I'll tell you if ever I want to marry you."

"All right," he said.

He would rather the thing was left indefinite, and that she
took the responsibility.

They talked of the Easter vacation. She thought only of
complete enjoyment.

They went to an hotel in Piccadilly. She was su