The Rainbow

The talk was led, by a kind of spell, to love. Miss Inger was

telling Ursula of a friend, how she had died in childbirth, and

what she had suffered; then she told of a prostitute, and of

some of her experiences with men.

As they talked thus, on the little verandah of the bungalow,

the night fell, there was a little warm rain.

"It is really stifling," said Miss Inger.

They watched a train, whose lights were pale in the lingering

twilight, rushing across the distance.

"It will thunder," said Ursula.

The electric suspense continued, the darkness sank, they were

eclipsed.

"I think I shall go and bathe," said Miss Inger, out of the

cloud-black darkness.

"At night?" said Ursula.

"It is best at night. Will you come?"

"I should like to."

"It is quite safe--the grounds are private. We had

better undress in the bungalow, for fear of the rain, then run

down."

Shyly, stiffly, Ursula went into the bungalow, and began to

remove her clothes. The lamp was turned low, she stood in the

shadow. By another chair Winifred Inger was undressing.

Soon the naked, shadowy figure of the elder girl came to the

younger.

"Are you ready?" she said.

"One moment."

Ursula could hardly speak. The other naked woman stood by,

stood near, silent. Ursula was ready.

They ventured out into the darkness, feeling the soft air of

night upon their skins.

"I can't see the path," said Ursula.

"It is here," said the voice, and the wavering, pallid figure

was beside her, a hand grasping her arm. And the elder held the

younger close against her, close, as they went down, and by the

side of the water, she put her arms round her, and kissed her.

And she lifted her in her arms, close, saying, softly: "I shall carry you into the water."

[Ursula lay still in her mistress's arms, her forehead against the

beloved, maddening breast.

"I shall put you in," said Winifred.

But Ursula twined her body about her mistress.] After awhile the rain came down on their flushed, hot limbs,

startling, delicious. A sudden, ice-cold shower burst in a great

weight upon them. They stood up to it with pleasure. Ursula

received the stream of it upon her breasts and her limbs. It

made her cold, and a deep, bottomless silence welled up in her,

as if bottomless darkness were returning upon her.

So the heat vanished away, she was chilled, as if from a

waking up. She ran indoors, a chill, non-existent thing, wanting

to get away. She wanted the light, the presence of other people,

the external connection with the many. Above all she wanted to

lose herself among natural surroundings.

She took her leave of her mistress and returned home. She was

glad to be on the station with a crowd of Saturday-night people,

glad to sit in the lighted, crowded railway carriage. Only she

did not want to meet anybody she knew. She did not want to talk.

She was alone, immune.