Sons and Lovers - Daimon Club

There was something in the charged atmosphere that she dreaded.
"Sir Thomas More says one can marry at twenty-four."
She laughed quaintly, saying:
"Does it need Sir Thomas More's sanction?"
"No; but one ought to marry about then."
"Ay," she answered broodingly; and she waited.
"I can't marry you," he continued slowly, "not now, because we've
no money, and they depend on me at home."
She sat half-guessing what was coming.
"But I want to marry now---"
"You want to marry?" she repeated.
"A woman--you know what I mean."
She was silent.
"Now, at last, I must," he said.
"Ay," she answered.
"And you love me?"
She laughed bitterly.
"Why are you ashamed of it," he answered. "You wouldn't
be ashamed before your God, why are you before people?"
"Nay," she answered deeply, "I am not ashamed."
"You are," he replied bitterly; "and it's my fault. But you
know I can't help being--as I am--don't you?"
"I know you can't help it," she replied.
"I love you an awful lot--then there is something short."
"Where?" she answered, looking at him.
"Oh, in me! It is I who ought to be ashamed--like
a spiritual cripple. And I am ashamed. It is misery. Why is it?"
"I don't know," replied Miriam.
"And I don't know," he repeated. "Don't you think we have
been too fierce in our what they call purity? Don't you think
that to be so much afraid and averse is a sort of dirtiness?"
She looked at him with startled dark eyes.
"You recoiled away from anything of the sort, and I took
the motion from you, and recoiled also, perhaps worse."
There was silence in the room for some time.
"Yes," she said, "it is so."
"There is between us," he said, "all these years of intimacy.
I feel naked enough before you. Do you understand?"