Page 586 - women-in-love

wards—I felt I was a whole ROOMFUL of women. I was
no more myself to him, than I was Queen Victoria. I was a
whole roomful of women at once. It was most astounding!
But my eye, I’d caught a Sultan that time—‘
Gudrun’s eyes were flashing, her cheek was hot, she
looked strange, exotic, satiric. Ursula was fascinated at
once—and yet uneasy.
They had to get ready for dinner. Gudrun came down in
a daring gown of vivid green silk and tissue of gold, with
green velvet bodice and a strange black-and-white band
round her hair. She was really brilliantly beautiful and every-
body noticed her. Gerald was in that full-blooded, gleaming
state when he was most handsome. Birkin watched them
with quick, laughing, half-sinister eyes, Ursula quite lost
her head. There seemed a spell, almost a blinding spell, cast
round their table, as if they were lighted up more strongly
than the rest of the dining-room.
‘Don’t you love to be in this place?’ cried Gudrun. ‘Isn’t
the snow wonderful! Do you notice how it exalts everything?
It is simply marvellous. One really does feel LIBERMEN-
SCHLICH—more than human.’
‘One does,’ cried Ursula. ‘But isn’t that partly the being
out of England?’
‘Oh, of course,’ cried Gudrun. ‘One could never feel like
this in England, for the simple reason that the damper is
NEVER lifted off one, there. It is quite impossible really to
let go, in England, of that I am assured.’
And she turned again to the food she was eating. She was
fluttering with vivid intensity.

586 Women in Love