Page 131 - women-in-love

here?’
‘She knew Gudrun in London—that’s the younger one,
the one with the darker hair—she’s an artist—does sculp-
ture and modelling.’
‘She’s not a teacher in the Grammar School, then—only
the other?’
‘Both—Gudrun art mistress, Ursula a class mistress.’
‘And what’s the father?’
‘Handicraft instructor in the schools.’
‘Really!’
‘Class-barriers are breaking down!’
Gerald was always uneasy under the slightly jeering tone
of the other.
‘That their father is handicraft instructor in a school!
What does it matter to me?’
Birkin laughed. Gerald looked at his face, as it lay there
laughing and bitter and indifferent on the pillow, and he
could not go away.
‘I don’t suppose you will see very much more of Gudrun,
at least. She is a restless bird, she’ll be gone in a week or two,’
said Birkin.
‘Where will she go?’
‘London, Paris, Rome—heaven knows. I always expect
her to sheer off to Damascus or San Francisco; she’s a bird
of paradise. God knows what she’s got to do with Beldover.
It goes by contraries, like dreams.’
Gerald pondered for a few moments.
‘How do you know her so well?’ he asked.
‘I knew her in London,’ he replied, ‘in the Algernon

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