It seemed to her, while she was crying there, that stupidity
combined with egoism must have the power to kill even that vital,
enduring thing, a woman's love. She had begun to idealise Fritz, but how
could she go on idealising him? And she began for the first time really
to understand--or to begin to understand--that there actually was
something within her which was hungry, unsatisfied, something which was
not animal but mental, or was it spiritual?--something not sensual, not
cerebral, which cried aloud for sustenance. And this something did not,
could never, cry to Fritz. It knew he could not give it what it wanted.
Then to whom did it cry? She did not know.
Presently she grew calmer and sat upon the bed, looking straight before
her. Her mind returned upon itself. She seemed to go back to that point
of time, just before Lady Cardington called, when she had the programme
in her hand and thought of the gossamer threads that were as iron in her
life, and in such lives as hers; then to move on to that other point of
time when she laid down the programme, sighed, and was conscious of a
violent desire for release, for something to come and lift a powerful
hand and brush away the spider's web.
But now, returning to this further moment in her life, she asked herself
what would be left to her if the spider's web were gone? The believers in
the angel? Perhaps she no longer included Fritz among them.
Pages:
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253