communicating with Birkin’s bedroom. When they all took their candles and mounted the stairs, where the lamps were burning subduedly, Hermione captured Ursula and brought her into her own bedroom, to talk to her. A sort of constraint came over Ursula in the big, strange bedroom. Hermione seemed to be bearing down on her, awful and inchoate, making some appeal. They were looking at some Indian silk shirts, gorgeous and sensual in themselves, their shape, their almost corrupt gorgeousness. And Hermione came near, and her bosom writhed, and Ursula was for a moment blank with panic. And for a moment Hermione’s haggard eyes saw the fear on the face of the other, there was again a sort of crash, a crashing down. And Ursula picked up a shirt of rich red and blue silk, made for a young princess of fourteen, and was crying mechanically:
“Isn’t it wonderful—who would dare to put those two strong colours together—”
Then Hermione’s maid entered silently and Ursula, overcome with dread, escaped, carried away by powerful impulse.
Birkin went straight to bed. He was feeling happy, and sleepy. Since he had danced he was happy. But Gerald would talk to him. Gerald, in evening dress, sat on Birkin’s bed when the other lay down, and must talk.
“Who are those two Brangwens?” Gerald asked.
“They live in Beldover.”
“In Beldover! Who are they then?”
“Teachers in the Grammar School.”
There was a pause.
“They are!” exclaimed Gerald at length. “I thought I had seen them before.”
“It disappoints you?” said Birkin.
“Disappoints me! No—but how is it Hermione has them here?”
“She knew Gudrun in London—that’s the younger one, the one with the darker hair—she’s an artist—does sculpture and modelling.”
“She’s not a teacher in the Grammar School, then—only the other?”
“Both—Gudrun art mistress, Ursula a class mistress.”
“And what’s the father?”
“Handicraft instructor in the schools.”
“Really!”
“Class-barriers are breaking down!”
Gerald was always uneasy under the slightly jeering tone of the other.
“That their father is handicraft instructor in a school! What does it matter to me?”
Birkin laughed. Gerald looked at his face, as it lay there laughing and bitter and indifferent on the pillow, and he could not go away.
“I don’t suppose you will see very much more of Gudrun, at least. She is a restless bird, she’ll be gone in a week or two,” said Birkin.
“Where will she go?”
“London, Paris, Rome—heaven knows. I always expect her to sheer off to Damascus or San Francisco; she’s a bird of paradise. God knows what she’s got to do with Beldover. It goes by contraries, like dreams.”
Gerald pondered for a few moments.
“How do you know her so well?” he asked.
“I knew her in London,” he replied, “in the Algernon Strange set. She’ll know about Pussum and Libidnikov and the rest—even if she doesn’t know them personally. She was never quite that set—more conventional, in a way. I’ve known her for two years, I suppose.”
“And she makes money, apart from her teaching?” asked Gerald.
“Some—irregularly. She can sell her models. She has a certain réclame.”
“How much for?”
“A guinea, ten guineas.”
“And are they good? What are they?”
“I think sometimes they are marvellously good. That is hers, those two wagtails in Hermione’s boudoir—you’ve seen them—they are carved in wood and painted.”
“I thought it was savage carving again.”
“No, hers. That’s what they are—animals and birds, sometimes odd small people in everyday dress, really rather wonderful when they come off. They have a sort of funniness that is quite unconscious and subtle.”
“She might be a well-known artist one day?” mused Gerald.
“She might. But I think she won’t. She drops her art if anything else catches her. Her contrariness prevents her taking it seriously—she must never be too serious, she feels she might give herself away. And she won’t give herself away—she’s always on the defensive. That’s what I can’t stand about her type. By the way, how did things go off with Pussum after I left you? I haven’t heard anything.”
“Oh, rather disgusting. Halliday turned objectionable, and I only just saved myself from jumping in his stomach, in a real old-fashioned row.”
Birkin was silent.
“Of course,” he said, “Julius is somewhat insane. On the one hand he’s had religious mania, and on the other, he is fascinated by obscenity. Either he is a pure servant, washing the feet of Christ, or else he is making obscene drawings of Jesus—action and reaction—and between the two, nothing. He is really insane. He wants a pure lily, another girl, with a baby face, on the one hand, and on the other, he must have the Pussum, just to defile himself with her.”
“That’s what I can’t make out,” said Gerald. “Does he love her, the Pussum, or doesn’t he?”
“He neither does nor doesn’t. She is the harlot, the actual harlot of adultery to him. And he’s got a craving to throw himself into the filth of her. Then he gets up and calls on the name of the lily of purity, the baby-faced girl, and so enjoys himself all round. It’s the old story—action and reaction, and nothing between.”
“I don’t know,” said Gerald, after a pause, “that he does insult the Pussum so very much. She strikes me as being rather foul.”
“But I thought you liked her,” exclaimed Birkin. “I always felt fond of her. I never had anything to do with her, personally, that’s true.”
“I liked her all right, for a couple of days,” said Gerald. “But a week of her would have turned me over. There’s a certain smell about the skin of those women, that in the end is sickening beyond words—even if you like it at first.”
“I know,” said Birkin. Then he added, rather fretfully, “But go to bed, Gerald. God knows what time it is.”
Gerald looked at his watch, and at length rose off the bed, and went to his room. But he returned in a few minutes, in his shirt.
“One thing,” he said, seating himself on the bed again. “We finished up rather stormily, and I never had time to give her anything.”
“Money?” said Birkin. “She’ll get what she wants from Halliday or from one of her acquaintances.”
“But then,” said Gerald, “I’d rather give her her dues and settle the account.”
“She doesn’t care.”
“No, perhaps not. But one feels the account is left open, and one would rather it were closed.”
“Would you?” said Birkin. He was looking at the white legs of Gerald, as the latter sat on the side of the bed in his shirt. They were white-skinned, full, muscular legs, handsome and decided. Yet they moved Birkin with a sort of pathos, tenderness, as if they were childish.
“I think I’d rather close the account,” said Gerald, repeating himself vaguely.
“It doesn’t matter one way or another,” said Birkin.
“You always say it doesn’t