Page 147 - women-in-love

Hermione was looking at him with leering eyes, along
her cheeks. He could feel violent waves of hatred and loath-
ing of all he said, coming out of her. It was dynamic hatred
and loathing, coming strong and black out of the uncon-
sciousness. She heard his words in her unconscious self,
CONSCIOUSLY she was as if deafened, she paid no heed
to them.
‘It SOUNDS like megalomania, Rupert,’ said Gerald, ge-
nially.
Hermione gave a queer, grunting sound. Birkin stood
back.
‘Yes, let it,’ he said suddenly, the whole tone gone out
of his voice, that had been so insistent, bearing everybody
down. And he went away.
But he felt, later, a little compunction. He had been vio-
lent, cruel with poor Hermione. He wanted to recompense
her, to make it up. He had hurt her, he had been vindictive.
He wanted to be on good terms with her again.
He went into her boudoir, a remote and very cushiony
place. She was sitting at her table writing letters. She lifted
her face abstractedly when he entered, watched him go to
the sofa, and sit down. Then she looked down at her paper
again.
He took up a large volume which he had been reading
before, and became minutely attentive to his author. His
back was towards Hermione. She could not go on with her
writing. Her whole mind was a chaos, darkness breaking
in upon it, and herself struggling to gain control with her
will, as a swimmer struggles with the swirling water. But in

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