be enough. It was nothing-it was just a step across the threshold.
My dear, every moment you are away I ache for you-ache! I want to
be about when it isn't love-making or talk. I want to be doing
things for you, and watching you when you're not thinking of me.
All those safe, careless, intimate things. And something else-"
She stopped. "Dear, I don't want to bother you. I just want you to
know I love you…"
She caught my head in her hands and kissed it, then stood up
abruptly.
I looked up at her, a little perplexed.
"Dear heart," said I, "isn't this enough? You're my councillor, my
colleague, my right hand, the secret soul of my life-"
"And I want to darn your socks," she said, smiling back at me.
"You're insatiable."
She smiled "No," she said. "I'm not insatiable, Master. But I'm a
woman in love. And I'm finding out what I want, and what is
necessary to me-and what I can't have. That's all."
"We get a lot."
"We want a lot. You and I are greedy people for the things we like,
Master. It's very evident we've got nearly all we can ever have of
one another-and I'm not satisfied."
"What more is there?
"For you-very little. I wonder. For me-every thing. Yes-
everything. You didn't mean it, Master; you didn't know any more
than I did when I began, but love between a man and a woman is
sometimes very one-sided. Fearfully one-sided! That's all…"
"Don't YOU ever want children?" she said abruptly.
"I suppose I do."
"You don't!"
"I haven't thought of them."
"A man doesn't, perhaps. But I have… I want them-like
hunger. YOUR children, and home with you. Really, continually you!
That's the trouble… I can't have 'em, Master, and I can't
have you."
She was crying, and through her tears she laughed.
"I'm going to make a scene," she said, "and get this over. I'm so
discontented and miserable; I've got to tell you. It would come
between us if I didn't. I'm in love with you, with everything-with
all my brains. I'll pull through all right. I'll be good, Master,
never you fear. But to-day I'm crying out with all my being. This
election-You're going up; you're going on. In these papers-you're
a great big fact. It's suddenly come home to me. At the back of my
mind I've always had the idea I was going to have you somehow
presently for myself-I mean to have you to go long tramps with, to
keep house for, to get meals for, to watch for of an evening. It's
a sort of habitual background to my thought of you. And it's
nonsense-utter nonsense!" She stopped. She was crying and
choking. "And the child, you know-the child!"
I was troubled beyond measure, but Handitch and its intimations were
clear and strong.
"We can't have that," I said.
"No," she said, "we can't have that."
"We've got our own things to do."
"YOUR things," she said.
"Aren't they yours too?"
"Because of you," she said.
"Aren't they your very own things?"
"Women don't have that sort of very own thing. Indeed, it's true!
And think! You've been down there preaching the goodness of
children, telling them the only good thing in a state is happy,
hopeful children, working to free mothers and children-"
"And we give our own children to do it?" I said.
"Yes," she said. "And sometimes I think it's too much to give-too
much altogether… Children get into a woman's brain-when she
mustn't have them, especially when she must never hope for them.
Think of the child we might have now!-the little creature with
soft, tender skin, and little hands and little feet! At times it
haunts me. It comes and says, Why wasn't I given life? I can hear
it in the night… The world is full of such little ghosts,
dear lover-little things that asked for life and were refused.
They clamour to me. It's like a little fist beating at my heart.
Love children, beautiful children. Little cold hands that tear at
my heart! Oh, my heart and my lord!" She was holding my arm with
both her hands and weeping against it, and now she drew herself to
my shoulder and wept and sobbed in my embrace. "I shall never sit
with your child on my knee and you beside me-never, and Iam a woman
and your lover!…"