er. Her
soul was dead towards him. It made her sick.

Still she forgot and continued to love him, but ever more
coldly. He was at this time, when he was about twenty-eight
years old, strange and violent in his being, sensual. He
acquired some power over Anna, over everybody he came into
contact with.

After a long bout of hostility, Anna at last closed with him.
She had now four children, all girls. For seven years she had
been absorbed in wifehood and motherhood. For years he had gone
on beside her, never really encroaching upon her. Then gradually
another self seemed to assert its being within him. He was still
silent and separate. But she could feel him all the while coming
near upon her, as if his breast and his body were threatening
her, and he was always coming closer. Gradually he became
indifferent of responsibility. He would do what pleased him, and
no more.

He began to go away from home. He went to Nottingham on
Saturdays, always alone, to the football match and to the
music-hall, and all the time he was watching, in readiness. He
never cared to drink. But with his hard, golden-brown eyes, so
keen seeing with their tiny black pupils, he watched all the
people, everything that happened, and he waited.

In the Empire one evening he sat next to two girls. He was
aware of the one beside him. She was rather small, common, with
a fresh complexion and an upper lip that lifted from her teeth,
so that, when she was not conscious, her mouth was slightly open
and her lips pressed outwards in a kind of blind appeal. She was
strongly aware of the man next to her, so that all her body was
still, very still. Her face watched the stage. Her arms went
down into her lap, very self-conscious and still.

A gleam lit up in him: should he begin with her? Should he
begin with her to live the other, the unadmitted life of his
desire? Why not? He had always been so good. Save for his wife,
he was a virgin. And why, when all women were different? Why,
when he would only live once? He wanted the other life. His own
life was barren, not enough. He wanted the other.

Her open mouth, showing the small, irregular, white teeth,
appealed to him. It was open and ready. It was so vulnerable.
Why should he not go in and enjoy what was there? The slim arm
that went down so still and motionless to the lap, it was
pretty. She would be small, he would be able almost to hold her
in his two hands. She would be small, almost like a child, a