'Why England?' he asked in surprise.
'I don't know, it came like that.'
'It isn't a question of nations,' he said. 'France is far worse.'
'Yes, I know.
I felt I'd done with it all.'
They went and sat down on the roots of the trees, in the shadow.
And being silent, he remembered the beauty of her eyes, which were sometimes filled with light, like spring, suffused with wonderful promise.
So he said to her, slowly, with difficulty:
'There is a golden light in you, which I wish you would give me.'
It was as if he had been thinking of this for some time.
She was startled, she seemed to leap clear of him. Yet also she was pleased.
'What kind of a light,' she asked.
But he was shy, and did not say any more.
So the moment passed for this time.
And gradually a feeling of sorrow came over her.
'My life is unfulfilled,' she said.
'Yes,' he answered briefly, not wanting to hear this.
'And I feel as if nobody could ever really love me,' she said.
But he did not answer.
'You think, don't you,' she said slowly, 'that I only want physical things?
It isn't true.
I want you to serve my spirit.'
'I know you do.
I know you don't want physical things by themselves.
But, I want you to give me—to give your spirit to me—that golden light which is you—which you don't know—give it me—'
After a moment's silence she replied:
'But how can I, you don't love me!
You only want your own ends.
You don't want to serve ME, and yet you want me to serve you.
It is so one-sided!'
It was a great effort to him to maintain this conversation, and to press for the thing he wanted from her, the surrender of her spirit.
'It is different,' he said. 'The two kinds of service are so different.
I serve you in another way—not through YOURSELF—somewhere else.
But I want us to be together without bothering about ourselves—to be really together because we ARE together, as if it were a phenomenon, not a not a thing we have to maintain by our own effort.'
'No,' she said, pondering. 'You are just egocentric.
You never have any enthusiasm, you never come out with any spark towards me.
You want yourself, really, and your own affairs.
And you want me just to be there, to serve you.'
But this only made him shut off from her.
'Ah well,' he said, 'words make no matter, any way.
The thing IS between us, or it isn't.'
'You don't even love me,' she cried.
'I do,' he said angrily. 'But I want—' His mind saw again the lovely golden light of spring transfused through her eyes, as through some wonderful window.
And he wanted her to be with him there, in this world of proud indifference.
But what was the good of telling her he wanted this company in proud indifference.
What was the good of talking, any way?
It must happen beyond the sound of words.
It was merely ruinous to try to work her by conviction.
This was a paradisal bird that could never be netted, it must fly by itself to the heart.
'I always think I am going to be loved—and then I am let down.