Sons and Lovers - Daimon Club

"Don't what, I should like to know?" she exclaimed.
"Don't carry on again. I can't work."
She went very quiet.
"Yes, it's all very well," she said; "but how do you think
I'm going to manage?"
"Well, it won't make it any better to whittle about it."
"I should like to know what you'd do if you had it to put
up with."
"It won't be long. You can have my money. Let him go to hell."
He went back to his work, and she tied her bonnet-strings grimly.
When she was fretted he could not bear it. But now he began
to insist on her recognizing him.
"The two loaves at the top," she said, "will be done
in twenty minutes. Don't forget them."
"All right," he answered; and she went to market.
He remained alone working. But his usual intense concentration
became unsettled. He listened for the yard-gate. At a quarter-past
seven came a low knock, and Miriam entered.
"All alone?" she said.
"Yes."
As if at home, she took off her tam-o'-shanter and her long coat,
hanging them up. It gave him a thrill. This might be their own house,
his and hers. Then she came back and peered over his work.
"What is it?" she asked.
"Still design, for decorating stuffs, and for embroidery."
She bent short-sightedly over the drawings.
It irritated him that she peered so into everything that
was his, searching him out. He went into the parlour and returned
with a bundle of brownish linen. Carefully unfolding it,
he spread it on the floor. It proved to be a curtain or portiere,
beautifully stencilled with a design on roses.
"Ah, how beautiful!" she cried.
The spread cloth, with its wonderful reddish roses and dark
green stems, all so simple, and somehow so wicked-looking, lay at
her feet. She went on her knees before it, her dark curls dropping.
He saw her crouched voluptuously before his work, and his heart
beat quickly. Suddenly she looked up at him.
"Why does it seem cruel?" she asked.
"What?"
"There seems a feeling of cruelty about it," she said.