Page 241 - women-in-love

lifted and throat full and beautiful, and eyes half closed,
sightless. The sun was low and yellow, sinking down, and in
the sky floated a thin, ineffectual moon.
Ursula was quite absorbed in her song, when suddenly
Gudrun stopped and said mildly, ironically:
‘Ursula!’
‘Yes?’ said Ursula, opening her eyes out of the trance.
Gudrun was standing still and pointing, a mocking smile
on her face, towards the side.
‘Ugh!’ cried Ursula in sudden panic, starting to her feet.
‘They’re quite all right,’ rang out Gudrun’s sardonic
voice.
On the left stood a little cluster of Highland cattle, viv-
idly coloured and fleecy in the evening light, their horns
branching into the sky, pushing forward their muzzles
inquisitively, to know what it was all about. Their eyes glit-
tered through their tangle of hair, their naked nostrils were
full of shadow.
‘Won’t they do anything?’ cried Ursula in fear.
Gudrun, who was usually frightened of cattle, now shook
her head in a queer, half-doubtful, half-sardonic motion, a
faint smile round her mouth.
‘Don’t they look charming, Ursula?’ cried Gudrun, in a
high, strident voice, something like the scream of a seagull.
‘Charming,’ cried Ursula in trepidation. ‘But won’t they
do anything to us?’
Again Gudrun looked back at her sister with an enig-
matic smile, and shook her head.
‘I’m sure they won’t,’ she said, as if she had to convince

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