Page 227 - women-in-love

He was really out of temper. At the sound of his blind,
vindictive voice, the laughter suddenly left the girls, and
their hearts contracted with contempt. They hated his words
‘in the public road.’ What did they care for the public road?
But Gudrun was conciliatory.
‘But we weren’t laughing to HURT you,’ she cried, with
an uncouth gentleness which made her parents uncomfort-
able. ‘We were laughing because we’re fond of you.’
‘We’ll walk on in front, if they are SO touchy,’ said Ur-
sula, angry. And in this wise they arrived at Willey Water.
The lake was blue and fair, the meadows sloped down in
sunshine on one side, the thick dark woods dropped steep-
ly on the other. The little pleasure-launch was fussing out
from the shore, twanging its music, crowded with people,
flapping its paddles. Near the boat-house was a throng of
gaily-dressed persons, small in the distance. And on the
high-road, some of the common people were standing
along the hedge, looking at the festivity beyond, enviously,
like souls not admitted to paradise.
‘My eye!’ said Gudrun, sotto voce, looking at the motley
of guests, ‘there’s a pretty crowd if you like! Imagine your-
self in the midst of that, my dear.’
Gudrun’s apprehensive horror of people in the mass un-
nerved Ursula. ‘It looks rather awful,’ she said anxiously.
‘And imagine what they’ll be like—IMAGINE!’ said
Gudrun, still in that unnerving, subdued voice. Yet she ad-
vanced determinedly.
‘I suppose we can get away from them,’ said Ursula anx-
iously.

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