Page 589 - women-in-love

‘Ah, but you’ll come back,’ said Gudrun, with a sardonic
smile.
‘Tant pis pour moi,’ he replied.
‘Isn’t he angry with his mother country!’ laughed Ger-
ald, amused.
‘Ah, a patriot!’ said Gudrun, with something like a
sneer.
Birkin refused to answer any more.
Gudrun watched him still for a few seconds. Then she
turned away. It was finished, her spell of divination in him.
She felt already purely cynical. She looked at Gerald. He was
wonderful like a piece of radium to her. She felt she could
consume herself and know ALL, by means of this fatal,
living metal. She smiled to herself at her fancy. And what
would she do with herself, when she had destroyed herself?
For if spirit, if integral being is destructible, Matter is inde-
structible.
He was looking bright and abstracted, puzzled, for the
moment. She stretched out her beautiful arm, with its fluff
of green tulle, and touched his chin with her subtle, artist’s
fingers.
‘What are they then?’ she asked, with a strange, know-
ing smile.
‘What?’ he replied, his eyes suddenly dilating with won-
der.
‘Your thoughts.’
Gerald looked like a man coming awake.
‘I think I had none,’ he said.
‘Really!’ she said, with grave laughter in her voice.

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