Women in Love

It was a grotesque little diagram of a grotesque little animal, so

wicked and so comical, a slow smile came over Gudrun's face,

unconsciously. And at her side Winifred chuckled with glee, and said: 'It isn't like him, is it? He's much lovelier than that. He's SO

beautiful-mmm, Looloo, my sweet darling.' And she flew off to embrace

the chagrined little dog. He looked up at her with reproachful,

saturnine eyes, vanquished in his extreme agedness of being. Then she

flew back to her drawing, and chuckled with satisfaction.

'It isn't like him, is it?' she said to Gudrun.

'Yes, it's very like him,' Gudrun replied.

The child treasured her drawing, carried it about with her, and showed

it, with a silent embarrassment, to everybody.

'Look,' she said, thrusting the paper into her father's hand.

'Why that's Looloo!' he exclaimed. And he looked down in surprise,

hearing the almost inhuman chuckle of the child at his side.

Gerald was away from home when Gudrun first came to Shortlands. But the

first morning he came back he watched for her. It was a sunny, soft

morning, and he lingered in the garden paths, looking at the flowers

that had come out during his absence. He was clean and fit as ever,

shaven, his fair hair scrupulously parted at the side, bright in the

sunshine, his short, fair moustache closely clipped, his eyes with

their humorous kind twinkle, which was so deceptive. He was dressed in

black, his clothes sat well on his well-nourished body. Yet as he

lingered before the flower-beds in the morning sunshine, there was a

certain isolation, a fear about him, as of something wanting.

Gudrun came up quickly, unseen. She was dressed in blue, with woollen

yellow stockings, like the Bluecoat boys. He glanced up in surprise.

Her stockings always disconcerted him, the pale-yellow stockings and

the heavy heavy black shoes. Winifred, who had been playing about the

garden with Mademoiselle and the dogs, came flitting towards Gudrun.

The child wore a dress of black-and-white stripes. Her hair was rather

short, cut round and hanging level in her neck.

'We're going to do Bismarck, aren't we?' she said, linking her hand

through Gudrun's arm.

'Yes, we're going to do Bismarck. Do you want to?' 'Oh yes-oh I do! I want most awfully to do Bismarck. He looks SO

splendid this morning, so FIERCE. He's almost as big as a lion.' And

the child chuckled sardonically at her own hyperbole. 'He's a real

king, he really is.' 'Bon jour, Mademoiselle,' said the little French governess, wavering up

with a slight bow, a bow of the sort that Gudrun loathed, insolent.