.

She looked at him with her great, dazzled dark eyes.

"I do," she said.

"You don't--you can't--not really."

"Then what?" she asked slowly.

"Eh, I don't know--perhaps you like her because she's got a grudge
against men."

That was more probably one of his own reasons for liking Mrs. Dawes,
but this did not occur to him. They were silent. There had come into his
forehead a knitting of the brows which was becoming habitual with him,
particularly when he was with Miriam. She longed to smooth it away, and
she was afraid of it. It seemed the stamp of a man who was not her man
in Paul Morel.

There were some crimson berries among the leaves in the bowl. He reached
over and pulled out a bunch.

"If you put red berries in your hair," he said, "why would you look like
some witch or priestess, and never like a reveller?"

She laughed with a naked, painful sound.

"I don't know," she said.

His vigorous warm hands were playing excitedly with the berries.

"Why can't you laugh?" he said. "You never laugh laughter. You only
laugh when something is odd or incongruous, and then it almost seems to
hurt you."

She bowed her head as if he were scolding her.

"I wish you could laugh at me just for one minute--just for one minute.
I feel as if it would set something free."

"But"--and she looked up at him with eyes frightened and struggling--"I
do laugh at you--I DO."

"Never! There's always a kind of intensity. When you laugh I could
always cry; it seems as if it shows up your suffering. Oh, you make me
knit the brows of my very soul and cogitate."

Slowly she shook her head despairingly.

"I'm sure I don't want to," she said.

"I'm so damned spiritual with YOU always!" he cried.

She remained silent, thinking, "Then why don't you be otherwise." But he
saw her crouching, brooding figure, and it seemed to tear him in two.

"But, there, it's autumn," he said, "and everybody feels like a
disembodied spirit then."

There was still another silence. This peculiar sadness between them
thrilled her soul. He seemed so beautiful with his eyes gone dark, and
looking as if they were deep as the deepest well.

"You make me so spiritual!" he lamented. "And I don't want to be
spiritual."

She took her finger from her mouth with a little pop, and looked up at
him almost challenging. But still her soul was naked in her great dark
eyes, and there was the same yearning appeal upon her. If he could have
kissed her in abs