He looked at her a long time before he answered.
“It’s the money, really, and the position. It’s the world in you.”
“But isn’t there tenderness in me?” she said wistfully.
He looked down at her, with darkened, abstract eyes.
“Ay! It comes an’ goes, like in me.”
“But can’t you trust it between you and me?” she asked, gazing anxiously at him.
She saw his face all softening down, losing its armour.
“Maybe!” he said.
They were both silent.
“I want you to hold me in your arms,” she said. “I want you to tell me you are glad we are having a child.”
She looked so lovely and warm and wistful, his bowels stirred towards her.
“I suppose we can go to my room,” he said. “Though it’s scandalous again.”
But she saw the forgetfulness of the world coming over him again, his face taking the soft, pure look of tender passion.
They walked by the remoter streets to Coburg Square, where he had a room at the top of the house, an attic room where he cooked for himself on a gas ring. It was small, but decent and tidy.
She took off her things, and made him do the same. She was lovely in the soft first flush of her pregnancy.