He saw
Rachel's face distinctly, the grey eyes, the hair, the mouth; the face
that could look so many things--plain, vacant, almost insignificant, or
wild, passionate, almost beautiful, yet in his eyes was always the same
because of the extraordinary freedom with which she looked at him, and
spoke as she felt. What would she answer? What did she feel? Did she
love him, or did she feel nothing at all for him or for any other man,
being, as she had said that afternoon, free, like the wind or the sea?
"Oh, you're free!" he exclaimed, in exultation at the thought of her,
"and I'd keep you free. We'd be free together. We'd share everything
together. No happiness would be like ours. No lives would compare with
ours." He opened his arms wide as if to hold her and the world in one
embrace.
No longer able to consider marriage, or to weigh coolly what her nature
was, or how it would be if they lived together, he dropped to the ground
and sat absorbed in the thought of her, and soon tormented by the desire
to be in her presence again.
Chapter XIX
But Hewet need not have increased his torments by imagining that Hirst
was still talking to Rachel. The party very soon broke up, the Flushings
going in one direction, Hirst in another, and Rachel remaining in the
hall, pulling the illustrated papers about, turning from one to another,
her movements expressing the unformed restless desire in her mind.
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