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‘Tomorrow afternoon. I can’t come.’
‘Why not?’
‘Oh, the usual reason. It’s started early this time.’
For a moment he was violently angry. During the month
that he had known her the nature of his desire for her had
changed. At the beginning there had been little true sensu-
ality in it. Their first love-making had been simply an act
of the will. But after the second time it was different. The
smell of her hair, the taste of her mouth, the feeling of her
skin seemed to have got inside him, or into the air all round
him. She had become a physical necessity, something that
he not only wanted but felt that he had a right to. When she
said that she could not come, he had the feeling that she was
cheating him. But just at this moment the crowd pressed
them together and their hands accidentally met. She gave
the tips of his fingers a quick squeeze that seemed to in-
vite not desire but affection. It struck him that when one
lived with a woman this particular disappointment must be
a normal, recurring event; and a deep tenderness, such as
he had not felt for her before, suddenly took hold of him. He
wished that they were a married couple of ten years’ stand-
ing. He wished that he were walking through the streets
with her just as they were doing now but openly and with-
out fear, talking of trivialities and buying odds and ends
for the household. He wished above all that they had some
place where they could be alone together without feeling
the obligation to make love every time they met. It was not
actually at that moment, but at some time on the following
day, that the idea of renting Mr Charrington’s room had oc-