He did not want
during those weeks any sensual excitement, any depravity, any
license. A quiet and noble asceticism seemed to him perfectly
possible. He burst out once to Maggie with: "I can't conceive,
Maggie, why I ever thought life complicated. You've straightened
everything out for me, made all the troubles at home seem nothing,
shown me what nonsense it was wanting the rotten things I was always
after."
But Maggie had no eloquence in reply--she could not make up fine
sentences; it embarrassed her dreadfully to tell him even that she
loved him, and when he was sentimental it was her habit to turn it
off with a joke if she could. She wanted terribly to ask him
sometimes what he had meant when he said that he didn't love her as
he had loved other women. She had never the courage to ask him this.
She wondered sometimes why it had hurt her when he had said he loved
her as though she were a man friend, without any question of sex.
"Surely that's enough for me," she would ask herself, "it means that
it's much more lasting and safe." And yet it was not enough.
Nevertheless, during these weeks she found his brotherly care of her
adorable, he found her shyness divine.
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