She shuffled forward on her knees, and put her arms round him, round his legs, as he stood there, pressing her breasts against his knees and thighs, clutching him with strange, convulsive certainty, pressing his thighs against her, drawing him to her face, her throat, as she looked up at him with flaring, humble eyes of transfiguration, triumphant in first possession.
'You love me,' she murmured, in strange transport, yearning and triumphant and confident. 'You love me. I know you love me, I know.'
And she was passionately kissing his knees, through the wet clothing, passionately and indiscriminately kissing his knees, his legs, as if unaware of everything.
He looked down at the tangled wet hair, the wild, bare, animal shoulders. He was amazed, bewildered, and afraid. He had never thought of loving her. He had never wanted to love her. When he rescued her and restored her, he was a doctor, and she was a patient. He had had no single personal thought of her. Nay, this introduction of the personal element was very distasteful to him, a violation of his professional honour. It was horrible to have her there embracing his knees. It was horrible. He revolted from it, violently. And yet? and yet?he had not the power to break away.
.
THE HORSE DEALER'S DAUGHTER / 2267
She looked at him again, with the same supplication of powerful love, and that same transcendent, frightening light of triumph. In view of the delicate flame which seemed to come from her face like a light, he was powerless. And yet he had never intended to love her. He had never intended. And something stubborn in him could not give way.
'You love me,' she repeated, in a murmur of deep, rhapsodic assurance. 'You love me.'
Her hands were drawing him, drawing him down to her. He was afraid, even a little horrified. For he had, really, no intention of loving her. Yet her hands were drawing him towards her. He put out his hand quickly to steady himself, and grasped her bare shoulder. A flame seemed to burn the hand that grasped her soft shoulder. He had no intention of loving her: his whole will was against his yielding. It was horrible. And yet wonderful was the touch of her shoulders, beautiful the shining of her face. Was she perhaps mad? He had a horror of yielding to her. Yet something in him ached also.
He had been staring away at the door, away from her. But his hand remained on her shoulder. She had gone suddenly very still. He looked down at her. Her eyes were now wide with fear, with doubt, the light was dying from her face, a shadow of terrible greyness was returning. He could not bear the touch of her eyes' question upon him, and the look of death behind the question.
With an inward groan he gave way, and let his heart yield towards her. A sudden gentle smile came on his face. And her eyes, which never left his face, slowly, slowly filled with tears. He watched the strange water rise in her eyes, like some slow fountain coming up. And his heart seemed to burn and melt away in his breast.
He could not bear to look at her any more. He dropped on his knees and caught her head with his arms and pressed her face against his throat. She was very still. His heart, which seemed to have broken, was burning with a kind of agony in his breast. And he felt her slow, hot tears wetting his throat. But he could not move.
He felt the hot tears wet his neck and the hollows of his neck, and he
remained motionless, suspended through one of man's eternities. Only now it
had become indispensable to him to have her face pressed close to him; he
could never let her go again. He could never let her head go away from the
close clutch of his arm. He wanted to remain like that for ever, with his heart
hurting him in a pain that was also life to him. Without knowing, he was
looking down on her damp, soft brown hair.
Then, as it were suddenly, he smelt the horrid stagnant smell of that water.
And at the same moment she drew away from him and looked at him. Her
eyes were wistful and unfathomable. He was afraid of them, and he fell to
kissing her, not knowing what he was doing. He wanted her eyes not to have
that terrible, wistful, unfathomable look.
When she turned her face to him again, a faint delicate flush was glowing,
and there was again dawning that terrible shining of joy in her eyes, which
really terrified him, and yet which he now wanted to see, because he feared
the look of doubt still more.
'You love me?' she said, rather faltering.
'Yes.' The word cost him a painful effort. Not because it wasn't true. But
because it was too newly true, the saying seemed to tear open again his newly-
torn heart. And he hardly wanted it to be true, even now.
She lifted her face to him, and he bent forward and kissed her on the mouth,
.
226 8 / D. H. LAWRENCE
gently, with the one kiss that is an eternal pledge. And as he kissed her his heart strained again in his breast. He never intended to love her. But now it was over. He had crossed over the gulf to her, and all that he had left behind had shrivelled and become void.
