Sons and Lovers - Daimon Club

So he went as often, but he was usually with Edgar. Only all
the family, including the father, joined in charades and games
at evening. And later, Miriam drew them together, and they read
Macbeth out of penny books, taking parts. It was great excitement.
Miriam was glad, and Mrs. Leivers was glad, and Mr. Leivers enjoyed it.
Then they all learned songs together from tonic sol-fa, singing
in a circle round the fire. But now Paul was very rarely alone
with Miriam. She waited. When she and Edgar and he walked home
together from chapel or from the literary society in Bestwood,
she knew his talk, so passionate and so unorthodox nowadays,
was for her. She did envy Edgar, however, his cycling with Paul,
his Friday nights, his days working in the fields. For her Friday
nights and her French lessons were gone. She was nearly always alone,
walking, pondering in the wood, reading, studying, dreaming, waiting.
And he wrote to her frequently.
One Sunday evening they attained to their old rare harmony.
Edgar had stayed to Communion--he wondered what it was like--with
Mrs. Morel. So Paul came on alone with Miriam to his home. He was
more or less under her spell again. As usual, they were discussing
the sermon. He was setting now full sail towards Agnosticism,
but such a religious Agnosticism that Miriam did not suffer so badly.
They were at the Renan Vie de Jesus stage. Miriam was the
threshing-floor on which he threshed out all his beliefs. While he
trampled his ideas upon her soul, the truth came out for him. She alone
was his threshing-floor. She alone helped him towards realization.
Almost impassive, she submitted to his argument and expounding.
And somehow, because of her, he gradually realized where he was wrong.
And what he realized, she realized. She felt he could not do without her.
They came to the silent house. He took the key out of
the scullery window, and they entered. All the time he went
on with his discussion. He lit the gas, mended the fire,
and brought her some cakes from the pantry. She sat on the sofa,
quietly, with a plate on her knee. She wore a large white hat
with some pinkish flowers. It was a cheap hat, but he liked it.
Her face beneath was still and pensive, golden-brown and ruddy.
Always her ears were hid in her short curls. She watched him.
She liked him on Sundays. Then he wore a dark suit that showed the
lithe movement of his body. There was a clean, clear-cut look about him.
He went on with his thinking to her. Suddenly he reached for a Bible.
Miriam liked the way he reached up--so sharp, straight to the mark.
He turned the pages quickly, and read her a chapter of St. John.
As he sat in the armchair reading, intent, his voice only thinking,
she felt as if he were using her unconsciously as a man uses his
tools at some work he is bent on. She loved it. And the wistfulness
of his voice was like a reaching to something, and it was as if she
were what he reached with. She sat back on the sofa away from him,
and yet feeling herself the very instrument his hand grasped.
It gave her great pleasure.
Then he began to falter and to get self-conscious. And when he
came to the verse, "A woman, when she is in travail, hath sorrow
because her hour is come", he missed it out. Miriam had felt him
growing uncomfortable. She shrank when the well-known words did