She suffered, feeling
herself in a false position. Her right hand, which she had laid so gently
on his face, on his fresh skin, ached now, as if it were really injured.
She could not forgive Hadrian for the mistake: it made her dislike him
deeply.
Hadrian too slept badly. He had been awakened by the opening of the door,
and had not realized what the question meant. But the soft, straying
tenderness of her hand on his face startled something out of his soul. He
was a charity boy, aloof and more or less at bay. The fragile
exquisiteness of her caress startled him most, revealed unknown things to
him.
In the morning she could feel the consciousness in his eyes, when
she came downstairs. She tried to bear herself as if nothing at all
had happened, and she succeeded. She had the calm self-control,
self-indifference, of one who has suffered and borne her suffering. She
looked at him from her darkish, almost drugged blue eyes, she met the
spark of consciousness in his eyes, and quenched it. And with her long,
fine hand she put the sugar in his coffee.
But she could not control him as she thought she could. He had a keen
memory stinging his mind, a new set of sensations working in his
consciousness. Something new was alert in him. At the back of his
reticent, guarded mind he kept his secret alive and vivid. She was at his
mercy, for he was unscrupulous, his standard was not her standard.
Pages:
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162