Page 628 - women-in-love

Already they were rarely together. Leitner ran attach-
ing himself to somebody or other, always deferring, Loerke
was a good deal alone. Out of doors he wore a Westphalian
cap, a close brown-velvet head with big brown velvet flaps
down over his ears, so that he looked like a lop-eared rab-
bit, or a troll. His face was brown-red, with a dry, bright
skin, that seemed to crinkle with his mobile expressions.
His eyes were arresting—brown, full, like a rabbit’s, or like
a troll’s, or like the eyes of a lost being, having a strange,
dumb, depraved look of knowledge, and a quick spark of
uncanny fire. Whenever Gudrun had tried to talk to him he
had shied away unresponsive, looking at her with his watch-
ful dark eyes, but entering into no relation with her. He had
made her feel that her slow French and her slower German,
were hateful to him. As for his own inadequate English, he
was much too awkward to try it at all. But he understood
a good deal of what was said, nevertheless. And Gudrun,
piqued, left him alone.
This afternoon, however, she came into the lounge as he
was talking to Ursula. His fine, black hair somehow remind-
ed her of a bat, thin as it was on his full, sensitive-looking
head, and worn away at the temples. He sat hunched up,
as if his spirit were bat-like. And Gudrun could see he was
making some slow confidence to Ursula, unwilling, a slow,
grudging, scanty self-revelation. She went and sat by her sis-
ter.
He looked at her, then looked away again, as if he took
no notice of her. But as a matter of fact, she interested him
deeply.

628 Women in Love