Page 116 - women-in-love

was Rupert Birkin, and then a woman secretary, a Fraulein
Marz, young and slim and pretty.
The food was very good, that was one thing. Gudrun,
critical of everything, gave it her full approval. Ursula loved
the situation, the white table by the cedar tree, the scent of
new sunshine, the little vision of the leafy park, with far-
off deer feeding peacefully. There seemed a magic circle
drawn about the place, shutting out the present, enclosing
the delightful, precious past, trees and deer and silence, like
a dream.
But in spirit she was unhappy. The talk went on like a
rattle of small artillery, always slightly sententious, with a
sententiousness that was only emphasised by the continual
crackling of a witticism, the continual spatter of verbal jest,
designed to give a tone of flippancy to a stream of conversa-
tion that was all critical and general, a canal of conversation
rather than a stream.
The attitude was mental and very wearying. Only the
elderly sociologist, whose mental fibre was so tough as to
be insentient, seemed to be thoroughly happy. Birkin was
down in the mouth. Hermione appeared, with amazing
persistence, to wish to ridicule him and make him look
ignominious in the eyes of everybody. And it was surpris-
ing how she seemed to succeed, how helpless he seemed
against her. He looked completely insignificant. Ursula and
Gudrun, both very unused, were mostly silent, listening to
the slow, rhapsodic sing-song of Hermione, or the verbal
sallies of Sir Joshua, or the prattle of Fraulein, or the re-
sponses of the other two women.

116 Women in Love