revolutions, even as every sphere rolls away, rolls away from the centre! . . . That was how it would be . . . when he had grown old, very old. It was not so yet: for the present, the bright-haired little tribe was still in its golden dawn. . . . Yes, for its sake too he would like to disentangle himself, to disentangle himself. The thing that had never been able to hold him, would it hold him in his old age? . . . Well, there was no question of old age yet, even though he was getting on for fifty. But still it wasn't as it used to be: nothing was as it used to be, no, not even Pauline . . .
No, not even Pauline. When he went to her now, he took a malicious pleasure in telling her so, with rough words, in making her feel it . . . both in order to make himself appear rougher than he was and because of the resentment which always kept pricking him sharply.
"I say, you're not a bit like those old photographs of yours now!"
It gave her a shock when he said this. Nothing gave her such a blinding shock, as if the shock had plunged her into darkness and made everything go black and menacing as death.
She felt that it was cruel of him to throw it in her face like this; and she couldn't understand it in him. But, because her eyes were always laughing, even now they laughed their golden laugh. . . .
"Ah, you don't believe it! . . . You just think
