Women in Love

'Winifred veut tant faire le portrait de Bismarck-! Oh, mais toute la

matinee-"We will do Bismarck this morning!"-Bismarck, Bismarck,

toujours Bismarck! C'est un lapin, n'est-ce pas, mademoiselle?' 'Oui, c'est un grand lapin blanc et noir. Vous ne l'avez pas vu?' said

Gudrun in her good, but rather heavy French.

'Non, mademoiselle, Winifred n'a jamais voulu me le faire voir. Tant de

fois je le lui ai demande, "Qu'est ce donc que ce Bismarck, Winifred?"

Mais elle n'a pas voulu me le dire. Son Bismarck, c'etait un mystere.' 'Oui, c'est un mystere, vraiment un mystere! Miss Brangwen, say that

Bismarck is a mystery,' cried Winifred.

'Bismarck, is a mystery, Bismarck, c'est un mystere, der Bismarck, er

ist ein Wunder,' said Gudrun, in mocking incantation.

'Ja, er ist ein Wunder,' repeated Winifred, with odd seriousness, under

which lay a wicked chuckle.

'Ist er auch ein Wunder?' came the slightly insolent sneering of

Mademoiselle.

'Doch!' said Winifred briefly, indifferent.

'Doch ist er nicht ein Konig. Beesmarck, he was not a king, Winifred,

as you have said. He was only-il n'etait que chancelier.' 'Qu'est ce qu'un chancelier?' said Winifred, with slightly contemptuous

indifference.

'A chancelier is a chancellor, and a chancellor is, I believe, a sort

of judge,' said Gerald coming up and shaking hands with Gudrun. 'You'll

have made a song of Bismarck soon,' said he.

Mademoiselle waited, and discreetly made her inclination, and her

greeting.

'So they wouldn't let you see Bismarck, Mademoiselle?' he said.

'Non, Monsieur.' 'Ay, very mean of them. What are you going to do to him, Miss Brangwen?

I want him sent to the kitchen and cooked.' 'Oh no,' cried Winifred.

'We're going to draw him,' said Gudrun.

'Draw him and quarter him and dish him up,' he said, being purposely

fatuous.

'Oh no,' cried Winifred with emphasis, chuckling.

Gudrun detected the tang of mockery in him, and she looked up and

smiled into his face. He felt his nerves caressed. Their eyes met in

knowledge.

'How do you like Shortlands?' he asked.

'Oh, very much,' she said, with nonchalance.

'Glad you do. Have you noticed these flowers?' He led her along the path. She followed intently. Winifred came, and

the governess lingered in the rear. They stopped before some veined

salpiglossis flowers.

'Aren't they wonderful?' she cried, looking at them absorbedly. Strange

how her reverential, almost ecstatic admiration of the flowers caressed

his nerves. She stooped down, and touched the trumpets, with infinitely

fine and delicate-touching finger-tips. It filled him with ease to see

her. When she rose, her eyes, hot with the beauty of the flowers,

looked into his.