Page 612 - women-in-love

ing, bewildered creature. And it made him smile, as she
shrank convulsively between his hands, violently, when he
must throw her into the air. At the end, she was so overcome
with prostrate love for him, that she could scarcely speak
sensibly at all.
Birkin was dancing with Ursula. There were odd little
fires playing in his eyes, he seemed to have turned into
something wicked and flickering, mocking, suggestive,
quite impossible. Ursula was frightened of him, and fasci-
nated. Clear, before her eyes, as in a vision, she could see
the sardonic, licentious mockery of his eyes, he moved to-
wards her with subtle, animal, indifferent approach. The
strangeness of his hands, which came quick and cunning,
inevitably to the vital place beneath her breasts, and, lift-
ing with mocking, suggestive impulse, carried her through
the air as if without strength, through blackmagic, made
her swoon with fear. For a moment she revolted, it was hor-
rible. She would break the spell. But before the resolution
had formed she had submitted again, yielded to her fear.
He knew all the time what he was doing, she could see it in
his smiling, concentrated eyes. It was his responsibility, she
would leave it to him.
When they were alone in the darkness, she felt the
strange, licentiousness of him hovering upon her. She was
troubled and repelled. Why should he turn like this?
‘What is it?’ she asked in dread.
But his face only glistened on her, unknown, horrible.
And yet she was fascinated. Her impulse was to repel him
violently, break from this spell of mocking brutishness. But

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