completely blind, blind as a wolf looking at her. It was a strange battle between her ordinary consciousness and his uncanny, black-art consciousness.
‘I don’t know,’ he replied, ‘what would you like to do?’
He spoke emptily, his mind was sunk away.
‘Oh,’ she said, with easy protestation, ‘I’m ready for anything—anything will be fine for ME, I’m sure.’
And to herself she was saying: ‘God, why am I so nervous—why are you so nervous, you fool. If he sees it I’m done for forever—you KNOW you’re done for forever, if he sees the absurd state you’re in.’
And she smiled to herself as if it were all child’s play. Meanwhile her heart was plunging, she was almost fainting. She could see him, in the mirror, as he stood there behind her, tall and over-arching—blond and terribly frightening. She glanced at his reflection with furtive eyes, willing to give anything to save him from knowing she could see him. He did not know she could see his reflection. He was looking unconsciously, glisteningly down at her head, from which the hair fell loose, as she brushed it with wild, nervous hand. She held her head aside and brushed and brushed her hair madly. For her life, she could not turn round and face him. For her life, SHE COULD NOT. And the knowledge made her almost sink to the ground in a faint, helpless, spent. She was aware of his frightening, impending figure standing close behind her, she was aware of his hard, strong, unyielding chest, close upon her back. And she felt she could not bear it any more, in a few minutes she would fall down at his feet, grovelling at his feet, and letting him destroy her.
The thought pricked up all her sharp intelligence and presence of mind. She dared not turn round to him—and there he stood motionless, unbroken. Summoning all her strength, she said, in a full, resonant, nonchalant voice, that was forced out with all her remaining self-control:
‘Oh, would you mind looking in that bag behind there and giving me my—’
Here her power fell inert. ‘My what—my what—?’ she screamed in silence to herself.
But he had started round, surprised and startled that she should ask him to look in her bag, which she always kept so VERY private to herself.
She turned now, her face white, her dark eyes blazing with uncanny, overwrought excitement. She saw him stooping to the bag, undoing the loosely buckled strap, unattentive.
‘Your what?’ he asked.
‘Oh, a little enamel box—yellow—with a design of a cormorant plucking her breast—’
She went towards him, stooping her beautiful, bare arm, and deftly turned some of her things, disclosing the box, which was exquisitely painted.
‘That is it, see,’ she said, taking it from under his eyes.
And he was baffled now. He was left to fasten up the bag, whilst she swiftly did up her hair for the night, and sat down to unfasten her shoes. She would not turn her back to him any more.
He was baffled, frustrated, but unconscious. She had the whip hand over him now. She knew he had not realised her terrible panic. Her heart was beating heavily still. Fool, fool that she was, to get into such a state! How she thanked God for Gerald’s obtuse blindness. Thank God he could see nothing.
She sat slowly unlacing her shoes, and he too commenced to undress. Thank God that crisis was over. She felt almost fond of him now, almost in love with him.
‘Ah, Gerald,’ she laughed, caressively, teasingly, ‘Ah, what a fine game you played with the Professor’s daughter—didn’t you now?’
‘What game?’ he asked, looking round.
‘ISN’T she in love with you—oh DEAR, isn’t she in love with you!’ said Gudrun, in her gayest, most attractive mood.
‘I shouldn’t think so,’ he said.
‘Shouldn’t think so!’ she teased. ‘Why the poor girl is lying at this moment overwhelmed, dying with love for you. She thinks you’re WONDERFUL—oh marvellous, beyond what man has ever been. REALLY, isn’t it funny?’
‘Why funny, what is funny?’ he asked.
‘Why to see you working it on her,’ she said, with a half reproach that confused the male conceit in him. ‘Really Gerald, the poor girl—!’
‘I did nothing to her,’ he said.
‘Oh, it was too shameful, the way you simply swept her off her feet.’
‘That was Schuhplatteln,’ he replied, with a bright grin.
‘Ha—ha—ha!’ laughed Gudrun.
Her mockery quivered through his muscles with curious reechoes. When he slept he seemed to crouch down in the bed, lapped up in his own strength, that yet was hollow.
And Gudrun slept strongly, a victorious sleep. Suddenly, she was almost fiercely awake. The small timber room glowed with the dawn, that came upwards from the low window. She could see down the valley when she lifted her head: the snow with a pinkish, half-revealed magic, the fringe of pine-trees at the bottom of the slope. And one tiny figure moved over the vaguely-illuminated space.
She glanced at his watch; it was seven o’clock. He was still completely asleep. And she was so hard awake, it was almost frightening—a hard, metallic wakefulness. She lay looking at him.
He slept in the subjection of his own health and defeat. She was overcome by a sincere regard for him. Till now, she was afraid before him. She lay and thought about him, what he was, what he represented in the world. A fine, independent will, he had. She thought of the revolution he had worked in the mines, in so short a time. She knew that, if he were confronted with any problem, any hard actual difficulty, he would overcome it. If he laid hold of any idea, he would carry it through. He had the faculty of making order out of confusion. Only let him grip hold of a situation, and he would bring to pass an inevitable conclusion.
