They laughed with pleasure when they were in the hall. The place seemed full and busy.
“Do you know if Mr. and Mrs. Crich—English—from Paris, have arrived?” Birkin asked in German.
The porter reflected a moment, and was just going to answer, when Ursula caught sight of Gudrun sauntering down the stairs, wearing her dark glossy coat, with grey fur.
“Gudrun! Gudrun!” she called, waving up the well of the staircase. “Shu-hu!”
Gudrun looked over the rail, and immediately lost her sauntering, diffident air. Her eyes flashed.
“Really—Ursula!” she cried. And she began to move downstairs as Ursula ran up. They met at a turn and kissed with laughter and exclamations inarticulate and stirring.
“But!” cried Gudrun, mortified. “We thought it was tomorrow you were coming! I wanted to come to the station.”
“No, we’ve come today!” cried Ursula. “Isn’t it lovely here!”
“Adorable!” said Gudrun. “Gerald’s just gone out to get something. Ursula, aren’t you fearfully tired?”
“No, not so very. But I look a filthy sight, don’t I!”
“No, you don’t. You look almost perfectly fresh. I like that fur cap immensely!” She glanced over Ursula, who wore a big soft coat with a collar of deep, soft, blond fur, and a soft blond cap of fur.
“And you!” cried Ursula. “What do you think you look like!”
Gudrun assumed an unconcerned, expressionless face.
“Do you like it?” she said.
“It’s very fine!” cried Ursula, perhaps with a touch of satire.
“Go up—or come down,” said Birkin. For there the sisters stood, Gudrun with her hand on Ursula’s arm, on the turn of the stairs halfway to the first landing, blocking the way and affording full entertainment to the whole of the hall below, from the door porter to the plump Jew in black clothes.
The two young women slowly mounted, followed by Birkin and the waiter.
“First floor?” asked Gudrun, looking back over her shoulder.
“Second Madam—the lift!” the waiter replied. And he darted to the elevator to forestall the two women. But they ignored him, as, chattering without heed, they set to mount the second flight. Rather chagrined, the waiter followed.
It was curious, the delight of the sisters in each other, at this meeting. It was as if they met in exile, and united their solitary forces against all the world. Birkin looked on with some mistrust and wonder.
When they had bathed and changed, Gerald came in. He looked shining like the sun on frost.
“Go with Gerald and smoke,” said Ursula to Birkin. “Gudrun and I want to talk.”
Then the sisters sat in Gudrun’s bedroom, and talked clothes, and experiences. Gudrun told Ursula the experience of the Birkin letter in the café. Ursula was shocked and frightened.
“Where is the letter?” she asked.
“I kept it,” said Gudrun.
“You’ll give it me, won’t you?” she said.
But Gudrun was silent for some moments, before she replied:
“Do you really want it, Ursula?”
“I want to read it,” said Ursula.
“Certainly,” said Gudrun.
Even now, she could not admit, to Ursula, that she wanted to keep it, as a memento, or a symbol. But Ursula knew, and was not pleased. So the subject was switched off.
“What did you do in Paris?” asked Ursula.
“Oh,” said Gudrun laconically—“the usual things. We had a fine party one night in Fanny Bath’s studio.”
“Did you? And you and Gerald were there! Who else? Tell me about it.”
“Well,” said Gudrun. “There’s nothing particular to tell. You know Fanny is frightfully in love with that painter, Billy Macfarlane. He was there—so Fanny spared nothing, she spent very freely. It was really remarkable! Of course, everybody got fearfully drunk—but in an interesting way, not like that filthy London crowd. The fact is these were all people that matter, which makes all the difference. There was a Romanian, a fine chap. He got completely drunk, and climbed to the top of a high studio ladder, and gave the most marvellous address—really, Ursula, it was wonderful! He began in French—La vie, c’est une affaire d’âmes impériales—in a most beautiful voice—he was a fine-looking chap—but he had got into Romanian before he had finished, and not a soul understood. But Donald Gilchrist was worked to a frenzy. He dashed his glass to the ground, and declared, by God, he was glad he had been born, by God, it was a miracle to be alive. And do you know, Ursula, so it was—” Gudrun laughed rather hollowly.
“But how was Gerald among them all?” asked Ursula.
“Gerald! Oh, my word, he came out like a dandelion in the sun! He’s a whole saturnalia in himself, once he is roused. I shouldn’t like to say whose waist his arm did not go round. Really, Ursula, he seems to reap the women like a harvest. There wasn’t one that would have resisted him. It was too amazing! Can you understand it?”
Ursula reflected, and a dancing light came into her eyes.
“Yes,” she said. “I can. He is such a whole-hogger.”
“Whole-hogger! I should think so!” exclaimed Gudrun. “But it is true, Ursula, every woman in the room was ready to surrender to him. Chanticleer isn’t in it—even Fanny Bath, who is genuinely in love with Billy Macfarlane! I never was more amazed in my life! And you know, afterwards—I felt I was a whole roomful of women. I was no more myself to him, than I was Queen Victoria. I was a whole roomful of women at once. It was most astounding! But my eye, I’d caught a Sultan that time—”
Gudrun’s eyes were flashing, her cheek was hot, she looked strange, exotic, satiric. Ursula was fascinated at once—and yet uneasy.
They had to get ready for dinner. Gudrun came down in a daring gown of vivid green silk and tissue of gold, with green velvet bodice and a strange black-and-white band round her hair. She was really brilliantly beautiful and everybody noticed her. Gerald was in that full-blooded, gleaming state when he was most handsome. Birkin watched them with quick, laughing, half-sinister eyes, Ursula quite lost her head. There seemed a spell, almost a blinding spell, cast round their table, as if they were lighted
