Page:The Prussian officer, and other stories, Lawrence, 1914.djvu/139

 her throat and wrists close. It gave him a feeling of pleasure and cleanness and relief from himself.

“What were you thinking about, that you didn’t get washed?” she asked, half intimately. He laughed, turning aside his head. The whites of his eyes showed very distinct in his black face.

“Oh,” he said, “I couldn’t tell you.”

There was a pause.

“Are you going to keep this house on?” she asked.

He stirred in his chair, under the question.

“I hardly know,” he said. “I’m very likely going to Canada."

Her spirit became very quiet and attentive.

“What for?” she asked.

Again he shifted restlessly on his seat.

“Well”—he said slowly—“to try the life.”

“But which life?”

“There’s various things—farming or lumbering or mining. I don’t mind much what it is.”

“And is that what you want?”

He did not think in these times, so he could not answer.

“I don’t know,” he said, “till I’ve tried.”

She saw him drawing away from her for ever.

“Aren’t you sorry to leave this house and garden?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” he answered reluctantly. “I suppose our Fred would come in—that’s what he’s wanting.”

“You don’t want to settle down?” she asked.

He was leaning forward on the arms of his chair. He turned to her. Her face was pale and set. It looked heavy and impassive, her hair shone richer