A new understanding dawned into her face.
`Of course,' she said, `there's that.'
`We must get out,' he said.`There's nothing for it but to get out, quick.'
She looked at him doubtfully across the table.
`But where?' she said.
`I don't know,' he said.`We'll just wander about for a bit.'
Again she looked at him quizzically.
`I should be perfectly happy at the Mill,' she said.
`It's very near the old thing,' he said.`Let us wander a bit.'
His voice could be so soft and happy-go-lucky, it went through her veins like an exhilaration.Nevertheless she dreamed of a valley, and wild gardens, and peace.She had a desire too for splendour -- an aristocratic extravagant splendour.Wandering seemed to her like restlessness, dissatisfaction.
`Where will you wander to?' she asked.
`I don't know.I feel as if I would just meet you and we'd set off --just towards the distance.'
`But where can one go?' she asked anxiously.`After all, there is only the world, and none of it is very distant.'
`Still,' he said, `I should like to go with you -- nowhere.It would be rather wandering just to nowhere.That's the place to get to -- nowhere.
One wants to wander away from the world's somewheres, into our own nowhere.'
Still she meditated.
`You see, my love,' she said, `I'm so afraid that while we are only people, we've got to take the world that's given -- because there isn't any other.'
`Yes there is,' he said.`There's somewhere where we can be free --somewhere where one needn't wear much clothes -- none even -- where one meets a few people who have gone through enough, and can take things for granted -- where you be yourself, without bothering.There is somewhere -- there are one or two people --'
`But where --?' she sighed.
`Somewhere -- anywhere.Let's wander off.That's the thing to do --let's wander off.'
`Yes --' she said, thrilled at the thought of travel.But to her it was only travel.
`To be free,' he said.`To be free, in a free place, with a few other people!'
`Yes,' she said wistfully.Those `few other people' depressed her.
`It isn't really a locality, though,' he said.`It's a perfected relation between you and me, and others -- the perfect relation -- so that we are free together.'
`It is, my love, isn't it,' she said.`It's you and me.It's you and me, isn't it?' She stretched out her arms to him.He went across and stooped to kiss her face.Her arms closed round him again, her hands spread upon his shoulders, moving slowly there, moving slowly on his back, down his back slowly, with a strange recurrent, rhythmic motion, yet moving slowly down, pressing mysteriously over his loins, over his flanks.The sense of the awfulness of riches that could never be impaired flooded her mind like a swoon, a death in most marvellous possession, mystic-sure.She possessed him so utterly and intolerably, that she herself lapsed out.And yet she was only sitting still in the chair, with her hands pressed upon him, and lost.
Again he softly kissed her.
`We shall never go apart again,' he murmured quietly.And she did not speak, but only pressed her hands firmer down upon the source of darkness in him.
They decided, when they woke again from the pure swoon, to write their resignations from the world of work there and then.She wanted this.
He rang the bell, and ordered note-paper without a printed address.
The waiter cleared the table.
`Now then,' he said, `yours first.Put your home address, and the date -- then "Director of Education, Town Hall -- Sir --" Now then! -- I don't know how one really stands -- I suppose one could get out of it in less than month -- Anyhow "Sir -- I beg to resign my post as classmistress in the Willey Green Grammar School.I should be very grateful if you would liberate me as soon as possible, without waiting for the expiration of the month's notice." That'll do.Have you got it? Let me look."Ursula Brangwen." Good! Now I'll write mine.I ought to give them three months, but I can plead health.I can arrange it all right.'
He sat and wrote out his formal resignation.
`Now,' he said, when the envelopes were sealed and addressed, `shall we post them here, both together? I know Jackie will say, "Here's a coincidence!"when he receives them in all their identity.Shall we let him say it, or not?'
`I don't care,' she said.
`No --?' he said, pondering.
`It doesn't matter, does it?' she said.
`Yes,' he replied.`Their imaginations shall not work on us.I'll post yours here, mine after.I cannot be implicated in their imaginings.'
He looked at her with his strange, non-human singleness.
`Yes, you are right,' she said.
She lifted her face to him, all shining and open.It was as if he might enter straight into the source of her radiance.His face became a little distracted.
`Shall we go?' he said.
`As you like,' she replied.
They were soon out of the little town, and running through the uneven lanes of the country.Ursula nestled near him, into his constant warmth, and watched the pale-lit revelation racing ahead, the visible night.Sometimes it was a wide old road, with grass-spaces on either side, flying magic and elfin in the greenish illumination, sometimes it was trees looming overhead, sometimes it was bramble bushes, sometimes the walls of a crew-yard and the butt of a barn.
`Are you going to Shortlands to dinner?' Ursula asked him suddenly.
He started.
`Good God!' he said.`Shortlands! Never again.Not that.Besides we should be too late.'
`Where are we going then -- to the Mill?'
`If you like.Pity to go anywhere on this good dark night.Pity to come out of it, really.Pity we can't stop in the good darkness.It is better than anything ever would be -- this good immediate darkness.'
She sat wondering.The car lurched and swayed.She knew there was no leaving him, the darkness held them both and contained them, it was not to be surpassed Besides she had a full mystic knowledge of his suave loins of darkness, dark-clad and suave, and in this knowledge there was some of the inevitability and the beauty of fate, fate which one asks for, which one accepts in full.
