Page 594 - women-in-love

coloured wood, floor, walls, ceiling, door, all of the same
warm gold panelling of oiled pine. There was a window
opposite the door, but low down, because the roof sloped.
Under the slope of the ceiling were the table with wash-
hand bowl and jug, and across, another table with mirror.
On either side the door were two beds piled high with an
enormous blue-checked overbolster, enormous.
This was all—no cupboard, none of the amenities of
life. Here they were shut up together in this cell of golden-
coloured wood, with two blue checked beds. They looked at
each other and laughed, frightened by this naked nearness
of isolation.
A man knocked and came in with the luggage. He was
a sturdy fellow with flattish cheek-bones, rather pale, and
with coarse fair moustache. Gudrun watched him put down
the bags, in silence, then tramp heavily out.
‘It isn’t too rough, is it?’ Gerald asked.
The bedroom was not very warm, and she shivered
slightly.
‘It is wonderful,’ she equivocated. ‘Look at the colour of
this panelling—it’s wonderful, like being inside a nut.’
He was standing watching her, feeling his short-cut
moustache, leaning back slightly and watching her with his
keen, undaunted eyes, dominated by the constant passion,
that was like a doom upon him.
She went and crouched down in front of the window, cu-
rious.
‘Oh, but this—!’ she cried involuntarily, almost in pain.
In front was a valley shut in under the sky, the last huge

594 Women in Love