red.

Which almost annoyed him.

"You know," he said, "Miriam and I have been a lot to each other ever
since I was sixteen--that's seven years now."

"It's a long time," Clara replied.

"Yes; but somehow she--it doesn't go right--"

"How?" asked Clara.

"She seems to draw me and draw me, and she wouldn't leave a single hair
of me free to fall out and blow away--she'd keep it."

"But you like to be kept."

"No," he said, "I don't. I wish it could be normal, give and take--like
me and you. I want a woman to keep me, but not in her pocket."

"But if you love her, it couldn't be normal, like me and you."

"Yes; I should love her better then. She sort of wants me so much that I
can't give myself."

"Wants you how?"

"Wants the soul out of my body. I can't help shrinking back from her."

"And yet you love her!"

"No, I don't love her. I never even kiss her."

"Why not?" Clara asked.

"I don't know."

"I suppose you're afraid," she said.

"I'm not. Something in me shrinks from her like hell--she's so good,
when I'm not good."

"How do you know what she is?"

"I do! I know she wants a sort of soul union."

"But how do you know what she wants?"

"I've been with her for seven years."

"And you haven't found out the very first thing about her."

"What's that?"

"That she doesn't want any of your soul communion. That's your own
imagination. She wants you."

He pondered over this. Perhaps he was wrong.

"But she seems--" he began.

"You've never tried," she answered.

CHAPTER XI

THE TEST ON MIRIAM

WITH the spring came again the old madness and battle. Now he knew he
would have to go to Miriam. But what was his reluctance? He told himself
it was only a sort of overstrong virginity in her and him which neither
could break through. He might have married her; but his circumstances
at home made it difficult, and, moreover, he did not want to marry.
Marriage was for life, and because they had become close companions, he
and she, he did not see that it should inevitably follow they should be
man and wife. He did not feel that he wanted marriage with Miriam. He
wished he did. He would have given his head to have felt a joyous desire
to marry her and to have her. Then why couldn't he bring it off? There
was some obstacle; and what was the obstacle? It lay in the physical
bondage. He shrank from the physical contact. But why? With her he felt
bound up inside himself. He could not go out to her.