Page 619 - women-in-love

‘Why to see you working it on her,’ she said, with a half
reproach that confused the male conceit in him. ‘Really
Gerald, the poor girl—!’
‘I did nothing to her,’ he said.
‘Oh, it was too shameful, the way you simply swept her
off her feet.’
‘That was Schuhplatteln,’ he replied, with a bright grin.
‘Ha—ha—ha!’ laughed Gudrun.
Her mockery quivered through his muscles with curious
re-echoes. When he slept he seemed to crouch down in the
bed, lapped up in his own strength, that yet was hollow.
And Gudrun slept strongly, a victorious sleep. Sudden-
ly, she was almost fiercely awake. The small timber room
glowed with the dawn, that came upwards from the low
window. She could see down the valley when she lifted her
head: the snow with a pinkish, half-revealed magic, the
fringe of pine-trees at the bottom of the slope. And one tiny
figure moved over the vaguely-illuminated space.
She glanced at his watch; it was seven o’clock. He was
still completely asleep. And she was so hard awake, it was
almost frightening—a hard, metallic wakefulness. She lay
looking at him.
He slept in the subjection of his own health and defeat.
She was overcome by a sincere regard for him. Till now,
she was afraid before him. She lay and thought about him,
what he was, what he represented in the world. A fine, inde-
pendent will, he had. She thought of the revolution he had
worked in the mines, in so short a time. She knew that, if
he were confronted with any problem, any hard actual dif-

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