Sons and Lovers - Daimon Club

His body lay like an abandoned thing, strewn in the chair.
"You know," she said, "I think we ought to be married."
He opened his eyes for the first time since many months,
and attended to her with respect.
"Why?" he said.
"See," she said, "how you waste yourself! You might be ill,
you might die, and I never know--be no more then than if I had never
known you."
"And if we married?" he asked.
"At any rate, I could prevent you wasting yourself and being
a prey to other women--like--like Clara."
"A prey?" he repeated, smiling.
She bowed her head in silence. He lay feeling his despair
come up again.
"I'm not sure," he said slowly, "that marriage would be much good."
"I only think of you," she replied.
"I know you do. But--you love me so much, you want to put me
in your pocket. And I should die there smothered."
She bent her head, put her fingers between her lips,
while the bitterness surged up in her heart.
"And what will you do otherwise?" she asked.
"I don't know--go on, I suppose. Perhaps I shall soon go abroad."
The despairing doggedness in his tone made her go on her
knees on the rug before the fire, very near to him. There she
crouched as if she were crushed by something, and could not raise
her head. His hands lay quite inert on the arms of his chair.
She was aware of them. She felt that now he lay at her mercy.
If she could rise, take him, put her arms round him, and say,
"You are mine," then he would leave himself to her. But dare she?
She could easily sacrifice herself. But dare she assert herself?