Page 644 - women-in-love

Loerke’s eyes. His soul was filled with her burning recogni-
tion, he seemed to grow more uppish and lordly.
Gerald looked at the small, sculptured feet. They were
turned together, half covering each other in pathetic shy-
ness and fear. He looked at them a long time, fascinated.
Then, in some pain, he put the picture away from him. He
felt full of barrenness.
‘What was her name?’ Gudrun asked Loerke.
‘Annette von Weck,’ Loerke replied reminiscent. ‘Ja, sie
war hubsch. She was pretty—but she was tiresome. She was
a nuisance,—not for a minute would she keep still—not un-
til I’d slapped her hard and made her cry—then she’d sit for
five minutes.’
He was thinking over the work, his work, the all impor-
tant to him.
‘Did you really slap her?’ asked Gudrun, coolly.
He glanced back at her, reading her challenge.
‘Yes, I did,’ he said, nonchalant, ‘harder than I have ever
beat anything in my life. I had to, I had to. It was the only
way I got the work done.’
Gudrun watched him with large, dark-filled eyes, for
some moments. She seemed to be considering his very soul.
Then she looked down, in silence.
‘Why did you have such a young Godiva then?’ asked
Gerald. ‘She is so small, besides, on the horse—not big
enough for it—such a child.’
A queer spasm went over Loerke’s face.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I don’t like them any bigger, any older.
Then they are beautiful, at sixteen, seventeen, eighteen—af-

644 Women in Love