Sons and Lovers - Daimon Club

sure I feel harmless--so--if it makes you look nice, and makes folk
happy when they have us, and makes us happy--why, we're not cheating
them out of much!"
They went on with the meal. When they were going away,
the old lady came timidly with three tiny dahlias in full blow,
neat as bees, and speckled scarlet and white. She stood before Clara,
pleased with herself, saying:
"I don't know whether---" and holding the flowers forward
in her old hand.
"Oh, how pretty!" cried Clara, accepting the flowers.
"Shall she have them all?" asked Paul reproachfully of the
old woman.
"Yes, she shall have them all," she replied, beaming with joy.
"You have got enough for your share."
"Ah, but I shall ask her to give me one!" he teased.
"Then she does as she pleases," said the old lady, smiling.
And she bobbed a little curtsey of delight.
Clara was rather quiet and uncomfortable. As they walked along,
he said:
"You don't feel criminal, do you?"
She looked at him with startled grey eyes.
"Criminal!" she said. "No."
"But you seem to feel you have done a wrong?"
"No," she said. "I only think, 'If they knew!'"
"If they knew, they'd cease to understand. As it is, they do
understand, and they like it. What do they matter? Here, with only
the trees and me, you don't feel not the least bit wrong, do you?"
He took her by the arm, held her facing him, holding her eyes
with his. Something fretted him.
"Not sinners, are we?" he said, with an uneasy little frown.
"No," she replied.
He kissed her, laughing.
"You like your little bit of guiltiness, I believe," he said.
"I believe Eve enjoyed it, when she went cowering out of Paradise."
But there was a certain glow and quietness about her that made
him glad. When he was alone in the railway-carriage, he found
himself tumultuously happy, and the people exceedingly nice,
and the night lovely, and everything good.