She stopped dancing, and confronted him, again lifting her
slim arms and twisting at her hair. Her nakedness hurt her,
opposed to him.
"I can do as I like in my bedroom," she cried. "Why do you
interfere with me?"
And she slipped on a dressing-gown and crouched before the
fire. He was more at ease now she was covered up. The vision of
her tormented him all the days of his life, as she had been
then, a strange, exalted thing having no relation to
himself.
After this day, the door seemed to shut on his mind. His brow
shut and became impervious. His eyes ceased to see, his hands
were suspended. Within himself his will was coiled like a beast,
hidden under the darkness, but always potent, working.
At first she went on blithely enough with him shut down
beside her. But then his spell began to take hold of her. The
dark, seething potency of him, the power of a creature that lies
hidden and exerts its will to the destruction of the
free-running creature, as the tiger lying in the darkness of the
leaves steadily enforces the fall and death of the light
creatures that drink by the waterside in the morning, gradually
began to take effect on her. Though he lay there in his darkness
and did not move, yet she knew he lay waiting for her. She felt
his will fastening on her and pulling her down, even whilst he
was silent and obscure.
She found that, in all her outgoings and her incomings, he
prevented her. Gradually she realized that she was being borne
down by him, borne down by the clinging, heavy weight of him,
that he was pulling her down as a leopard clings to a wild cow
and exhausts her and pulls her down.
Gradually she realized that her life, her freedom, was
sinking under the silent grip of his physical will. He wanted
her in his power. He wanted to devour her at leisure, to have
her. At length she realized that her sleep was a long ache and a
weariness and exhaustion, because of his will fastened upon her,
as he lay there beside her, during the night.
She realized it all, and there came a momentous pause, a
pause in her swift running, a moment's suspension in her life,
when she was lost.
Then she turned fiercely on him, and fought him. He was not
to do this to her, it was monstrous. What horrible hold did he
want to have over her body? Why did he want to drag her down,
and kill her spirit? Why did he want to deny her spirit? Why did
he deny her spirituality, hold her for a body only? And was he
to claim her carcase?
Some vast, hideous darkness he seemed to represent to
her.