Birkin, who looked muted, unreal, his presence left out, introduced her as Miss Darrington. She gave her hand with a sudden, unwilling movement, looking all the while at Gerald with a dark, exposed stare. A glow came over him as he sat down.
The waiter appeared. Gerald glanced at the glasses of the other two. Birkin was drinking something green, Miss Darrington had a small liqueur glass that was empty save for a tiny drop.
'Won't you have some more--?'
'Brandy,' she said, sipping her last drop and putting down the glass. The waiter disappeared.
'No,' she said to Birkin. 'He doesn't know I'm back. He'll be terrified when he sees me here.'
She spoke her r's like w's, lisping with a slightly babyish pronunciation which was at once affected and true to her character. Her voice was dull and toneless.
'Where is he then?' asked Birkin.
'He's doing a private show at Lady Snellgrove's,' said the girl. 'Warens is there too.' There was a pause.
'Well, then,' said Birkin, in a dispassionate protective manner, 'what do you intend to do?' The girl paused sullenly. She hated the question.
'I don't intend to do anything,' she replied. 'I shall look for some sittings tomorrow.'
'Who shall you go to?' asked Birkin.
'I shall go to Bentley's first. But I believe he's angwy with me for running away.'
'That is from the Madonna?'
'Yes. And then if he doesn't want me, I know I can get work with Carmarthen.'
'Carmarthen?'
'Lord Carmarthen--he does photographs.'
'Chiffon and shoulders--'
'Yes. But he's awfully decent.' There was a pause.
'And what are you going to do about Julius?' he asked.
'Nothing,' she said. 'I shall just ignore him.'
'You've done with him altogether?' But she turned aside her face sullenly, and did not answer the question. Another young man came hurrying up to the table.
'Hallo Birkin! Hallo PUSSUM, when did you come back?' he said eagerly.
36
'Today.'
'Does Halliday know?'
'I don't know. I don't care either.'
'Ha-ha! The wind still sits in that quarter, does it? Do you mind if I come over to this table?'
'I'm talking to Wupert, do you mind?' she replied, coolly and yet appealingly, like a child.
'Open confession--good for the soul, eh?' said the young man. 'Well, so long.'
And giving a sharp look at Birkin and at Gerald, the young man moved off, with a swing of his coat skirts.
All this time Gerald had been completely ignored. And yet he felt that the girl was physically aware of his proximity. He waited, listened, and tried to piece together the conversation.
'Are you staying at the flat?' the girl asked, of Birkin.
'For three days,' replied Birkin. 'And you?'
'I don't know yet. I can always go to Bertha's.' There was a silence.
Suddenly the girl turned to Gerald, and said, in a rather formal, polite voice, with the distant manner of a woman who accepts her position as a social inferior, yet assumes intimate CAMARADERIE with the male she addresses:
'Do you know London well?'
'I can hardly say,' he laughed. 'I've been up a good many times, but I was never in this place before.'
'You're not an artist, then?' she said, in a tone that placed him an outsider.
'No,' he replied.
'He's a soldier, and an explorer, and a Napoleon of industry,' said Birkin, giving Gerald his credentials for Bohemia.
'Are you a soldier?' asked the girl, with a cold yet lively curiosity.
'No, I resigned my commission,' said Gerald, 'some years ago.'
'He was in the last war,' said Birkin.
'Were you really?' said the girl.
'And then he explored the Amazon,' said Birkin, 'and now he is ruling over coal-mines.'
The girl looked at Gerald with steady, calm curiosity. He laughed, hearing himself described. He felt proud too, full of male strength. His blue, keen eyes were lit up with laughter, his ruddy face, with its sharp fair hair, was full of satisfaction, and glowing with life. He piqued her.
'How long are you staying?' she asked him.
'A day or two,' he replied. 'But there is no particular hurry.'
Still she stared into his face with that slow, full gaze which was so curious and so exciting to him. He was acutely and delightfully conscious of himself, of his own attractiveness. He felt full of strength, able to give off a sort of electric power. And he was aware of her dark, hot-looking eyes upon him. She had beautiful eyes, dark, fully-opened, hot, naked in their looking at him. And on them
37
there seemed to float a film of disintegration, a sort of misery and sullenness, like oil on water. She wore no hat in the heated cafe, her loose, simple jumper was strung on a string round her neck. But it was made of rich peach-coloured crepe-de-chine, that hung heavily and softly from her young throat and her slender wrists. Her appearance was simple and complete, really beautiful, because of her regularity and form, her soft dark hair falling full and level on either side of her head, her straight, small, softened features, Egyptian in the slight fulness of their curves, her slender neck and the simple, rich-coloured smock hanging on her slender shoulders. She was very still, almost null, in her manner, apart and watchful.
She appealed to Gerald strongly. He felt an awful, enjoyable power over her, an instinctive cherishing very near to cruelty. For she was a victim. He felt that she was in his power, and he was generous. The electricity was turgid and voluptuously rich, in his limbs. He would be able to destroy her utterly in the strength of his discharge. But she was waiting in her separation, given.
They talked banalities for some time. Suddenly Birkin said:
'There's Julius!' and he half rose to his feet, motioning to the newcomer. The girl, with a curious, almost evil motion, looked round over her shoulder without moving her body. Gerald watched her dark, soft hair swing over her ears. He felt her watching intensely the man who was approaching, so he looked too. He saw a pale, full-built young man with rather long, solid fair hair hanging from under his black hat, moving cumbrously down the room, his face lit up with a smile at once naive and warm, and vapid. He approached towards Birkin, with a haste of welcome.
It was not till he was quite close that he perceived the girl. He recoiled, went pale, and said, in a high squealing voice:
'Pussum, what are YOU doing here?'
The cafe looked up like animals when they hear a cry. Halliday hung motionless, an almost imbecile smile flickering palely on his face. The girl only stared at him with a black look in which flared an unfathomable hell of knowledge, and a certain impotence. She was limited by him.
'Why have you come back?' repeated Halliday, in the same high, hysterical voice. 'I told you not to come back.'
The girl did not answer, only stared in the same viscous, heavy fashion, straight at him, as he stood recoiled, as if for safety, against the next table.
'You know you wanted her to come back--come and sit down,' said Birkin to him.
'No I didn't want her to come back, and I told her not to come back. What have you come for, Pussum?'
'For nothing from YOU,' she said in a heavy voice of resentment.
'Then why have you come back at ALL?' cried Halliday, his voice rising to a kind of squeal.
'She comes as she likes,' said Birkin. 'Are you going to sit down, or are you not?'