Page 684 - women-in-love

‘You are beautiful,’ he said, ‘and I am glad of it. But it isn’t
that—it isn’t that,’ he cried, with emphasis that flattered her.
‘It is that you have a certain wit, it is the kind of understand-
ing. For me, I am little, chetif, insignificant. Good! Do not
ask me to be strong and handsome, then. But it is the ME—‘
he put his fingers to his mouth, oddly—‘it is the ME that is
looking for a mistress, and my ME is waiting for the THEE
of the mistress, for the match to my particular intelligence.
You understand?’
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I understand.’
‘As for the other, this amour—‘ he made a gesture,
dashing his hand aside, as if to dash away something trou-
blesome—‘it is unimportant, unimportant. Does it matter,
whether I drink white wine this evening, or whether I drink
nothing? IT DOES NOT MATTER, it does not matter. So
this love, this amour, this BAISER. Yes or no, soit ou soit
pas, today, tomorrow, or never, it is all the same, it does not
matter—no more than the white wine.’
He ended with an odd dropping of the head in a desper-
ate negation. Gudrun watched him steadily. She had gone
pale.
Suddenly she stretched over and seized his hand in her
own.
‘That is true,’ she said, in rather a high, vehement voice,
‘that is true for me too. It is the understanding that mat-
ters.’
He looked up at her almost frightened, furtive. Then he
nodded, a little sullenly. She let go his hand: he had made
not the lightest response. And they sat in silence.

684 Women in Love