Women in Love

Again Gudrun was rather offended. Did he not think her good looking,

then? Suddenly she laughed.

'I shall have to wait about eighty years to suit you, at that!' she

said. 'I am ugly enough, aren't I?' He looked at her with an artist's sudden, critical, estimating eye.

'You are beautiful,' he said, 'and I am glad of it. But it isn't

that--it isn't that,' he cried, with emphasis that flattered her. 'It

is that you have a certain wit, it is the kind of understanding. For

me, I am little, chetif, insignificant. Good! Do not ask me to be

strong and handsome, then. But it is the ME--' he put his fingers to

his mouth, oddly--'it is the ME that is looking for a mistress, and my

ME is waiting for the THEE of the mistress, for the match to my

particular intelligence. You understand?' 'Yes,' she said, 'I understand.' 'As for the other, this amour--' he made a gesture, dashing his hand

aside, as if to dash away something troublesome--'it is unimportant,

unimportant. Does it matter, whether I drink white wine this evening,

or whether I drink nothing? IT DOES NOT MATTER, it does not matter. So

this love, this amour, this BAISER. Yes or no, soit ou soit pas, today,

tomorrow, or never, it is all the same, it does not matter--no more

than the white wine.' He ended with an odd dropping of the head in a desperate negation.

Gudrun watched him steadily. She had gone pale.

Suddenly she stretched over and seized his hand in her own.

'That is true,' she said, in rather a high, vehement voice, 'that is

true for me too. It is the understanding that matters.' He looked up at her almost frightened, furtive. Then he nodded, a

little sullenly. She let go his hand: he had made not the lightest

response. And they sat in silence.

'Do you know,' he said, suddenly looking at her with dark,

self-important, prophetic eyes, 'your fate and mine, they will run

together, till--' and he broke off in a little grimace.

'Till when?' she asked, blanched, her lips going white. She was

terribly susceptible to these evil prognostications, but he only shook

his head.

'I don't know,' he said, 'I don't know.' Gerald did not come in from his skiing until nightfall, he missed the

coffee and cake that she took at four o'clock. The snow was in perfect

condition, he had travelled a long way, by himself, among the snow

ridges, on his skis, he had climbed high, so high that he could see

over the top of the pass, five miles distant, could see the

Marienhutte, the hostel on the crest of the pass, half buried in snow,

and over into the deep valley beyond, to the dusk of the pine trees.

One could go that way home; but he shuddered with nausea at the thought

of home;--one could travel on skis down there, and come to the old

imperial road, below the pass. But why come to any road? He revolted at

the thought of finding himself in the world again. He must stay up

there in the snow forever. He had been happy by himself, high up there

alone, travelling swiftly on skis, taking far flights, and skimming

past the dark rocks veined with brilliant snow.