"I could never die while there was a tree," she said

passionately, sententiously, standing before a great ash in

worship.

It was the people who, somehow, walked as an upright menace

to her. Her life at this time was unformed, palpitating,

essentially shrinking from all touch. She gave something to

other people, but she was never herself, since she had no self.

She was not afraid nor ashamed before trees, and birds, and the

sky. But she shrank violently from people, ashamed she was not

as they were, fixed, emphatic, but a wavering, undefined

sensibility only, without form or being.

Gudrun was at this time a great comfort and shield to her.

The younger girl was a lithe, farouche animal, who

mistrusted all approach, and would have none of the petty

secrecies and jealousies of schoolgirl intimacy. She would have

no truck with the tame cats, nice or not, because she believed

that they were all only untamed cats with a nasty, untrustworthy

habit of tameness.

This was a great stand-back for Ursula, who suffered agonies

when she thought a person disliked her, no matter how much she

despised that other person. How could anyone dislike her, Ursula

Brangwen? The question terrified her and was unanswerable. She

sought refuge in Gudrun's natural, proud indifference.

It had been discovered that Gudrun had a talent for drawing.

This solved the problem of the girl's indifference to all study.

It was said of her, "She can draw marvellously."

Suddenly Ursula found a queer awareness existed between

herself and her class-mistress, Miss Inger. The latter was a

rather beautiful woman of twenty-eight, a fearless-seeming,

clean type of modern girl whose very independence betrays her

sorrow. She was clever, and expert in what she did, accurate,

quick, commanding.

To Ursula she had always given pleasure, because of her

clear, decided, yet graceful appearance. She carried her head

high, a little thrown back, and Ursula thought there was a look

of nobility in the way she twisted her smooth brown hair upon

her head. She always wore clean, attractive, well-fitting

blouses, and a well-made skirt. Everything about her was so

well-ordered, betraying a fine, clear spirit, that it was a

pleasure to sit in her class.

Her voice was just as ringing and clear, and with unwavering,

finely-touched modulation. Her eyes were blue, clear, proud, she

gave one altogether the sense of a fine-mettled, scrupulously

groomed person, and of an unyielding mind. Yet there was an

infinite poignancy about her, a great pathos in her lonely,

proudly closed mouth.

It was after Skrebensky had gone that there sprang up between

the mistress and the girl that strange awareness, then the

unspoken intimacy that sometimes connects two people who may

never even make each other's acquaintance. Before, they had

always been good friends, in the undistinguished way of the

class-room, with the professional relationship of mistress and

scholar always present. Now, however, another thing came to

pass. When they were in the room together, they were aware of

each other, almost to the exclusion of everything else. Winifred

Inger felt a hot delight in the lessons when Ursula was present,

Ursula felt her whole life begin when Miss Inger came into the

room. Then, with the beloved, subtly-intimate teacher present,

the girl sat as within the rays of some enrichening sun, whose

intoxicating heat poured straight into her veins.




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