door. The days passed, the weeks, the months.
Sometimes, in the sunny afternoons, she seemed almost happy.
"I try to think of the nice times--when we went to Mablethorpe, and
Robin Hood's Bay, and Shanklin," she said. "After all, not everybody has
seen those beautiful places. And wasn't it beautiful! I try to think of
that, not of the other things."
Then, again, for a whole evening she spoke not a word; neither did he.
They were together, rigid, stubborn, silent. He went into his room
at last to go to bed, and leaned against the doorway as if paralysed,
unable to go any farther. His consciousness went. A furious storm, he
knew not what, seemed to ravage inside him. He stood leaning there,
submitting, never questioning.
In the morning they were both normal again, though her face was grey
with the morphia, and her body felt like ash. But they were bright
again, nevertheless. Often, especially if Annie or Arthur were at home,
he neglected her. He did not see much of Clara. Usually he was with
men. He was quick and active and lively; but when his friends saw him
go white to the gills, his eyes dark and glittering, they had a certain
mistrust of him. Sometimes he went to Clara, but she was almost cold to
him.
"Take me!" he said simply.
Occasionally she would. But she was afraid. When he had her then,
there was something in it that made her shrink away from him--something
unnatural. She grew to dread him. He was so quiet, yet so strange. She
was afraid of the man who was not there with her, whom she could feel
behind this make-belief lover; somebody sinister, that filled her with
horror. She began to have a kind of horror of him. It was almost as if
he were a criminal. He wanted her--he had her--and it made her feel as
if death itself had her in its grip. She lay in horror. There was no
man there loving her. She almost hated him. Then came little bouts of
tenderness. But she dared not pity him.
Dawes had come to Colonel Seely's Home near Nottingham. There Paul
visited him sometimes, Clara very occasionally. Between the two men
the friendship developed peculiarly. Dawes, who mended very slowly and
seemed very feeble, seemed to leave himself in the hands of Morel.
In the beginning of November Clara reminded Paul that it was her
birthday.
"I'd nearly forgotten," he said.
"I'd thought quite," she replied.
"No. Shall we go to the seaside for the week-end?"
They went. It was cold and rather dismal. She waited for him to be warm
and tender with her, instead of which he seemed hardly aware of her.
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