"Or is it only this damnable engagement?" he continued. "Let's be
married here, before we go back--or is it too great a risk? Are we sure
we want to marry each other?"
They began pacing up and down the room, but although they came very near
each other in their pacing, they took care not to touch each other. The
hopelessness of their position overcame them both. They were impotent;
they could never love each other sufficiently to overcome all these
barriers, and they could never be satisfied with less. Realising this
with intolerable keenness she stopped in front of him and exclaimed:
"Let's break it off, then."
The words did more to unite them than any amount of argument. As if they
stood on the edge of a precipice they clung together. They knew that
they could not separate; painful and terrible it might be, but they
were joined for ever. They lapsed into silence, and after a time crept
together in silence. Merely to be so close soothed them, and sitting
side by side the divisions disappeared, and it seemed as if the world
were once more solid and entire, and as if, in some strange way, they
had grown larger and stronger.
It was long before they moved, and when they moved it was with great
reluctance. They stood together in front of the looking-glass, and
with a brush tried to make themselves look as if they had been feeling
nothing all the morning, neither pain nor happiness.
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