The afternoon was so gently warm and dim. Red roofs of the cottages
burned among the blue haze. He loved the day. He could feel, but he
could not understand, what Clara was saying.

"But why did you leave him? Was he horrid to you?"

She shuddered lightly.

"He--he sort of degraded me. He wanted to bully me because he hadn't
got me. And then I felt as if I wanted to run, as if I was fastened and
bound up. And he seemed dirty."

"I see."

He did not at all see.

"And was he always dirty?" he asked.

"A bit," she replied slowly. "And then he seemed as if he couldn't get
AT me, really. And then he got brutal--he WAS brutal!"

"And why did you leave him finally?"

"Because--because he was unfaithful to me--"

They were both silent for some time. Her hand lay on the gate-post as
she balanced. He put his own over it. His heart beat quickly.

"But did you--were you ever--did you ever give him a chance?"

"Chance? How?"

"To come near to you."

"I married him--and I was willing--"

They both strove to keep their voices steady.

"I believe he loves you," he said.

"It looks like it," she replied.

He wanted to take his hand away, and could not. She saved him by
removing her own. After a silence, he began again:

"Did you leave him out of count all along?"

"He left me," she said.

"And I suppose he couldn't MAKE himself mean everything to you?"

"He tried to bully me into it."

But the conversation had got them both out of their depth. Suddenly Paul
jumped down.

"Come on," he said. "Let's go and get some tea."

They found a cottage, where they sat in the cold parlour. She poured out
his tea. She was very quiet. He felt she had withdrawn again from him.
After tea, she stared broodingly into her tea-cup, twisting her wedding
ring all the time. In her abstraction she took the ring off her finger,
stood it up, and spun it upon the table. The gold became a diaphanous,
glittering globe. It fell, and the ring was quivering upon the table.
She spun it again and again. Paul watched, fascinated.

But she was a married woman, and he believed in simple friendship. And
he considered that he was perfectly honourable with regard to her.
It was only a friendship between man and woman, such as any civilised
persons might have.

He was like so many young men of his own age. Sex had become so
complicated in him that he would have denied that he ever could want
Clara or Miriam or any woman whom he knew. Sex desi