Page 426 - lady-chatterlys-lover

‘Better do us in a group, Vulcan and Venus under the net of
art. I used to be a blacksmith, before I was a game-keeper.’
’Thank you,’ said the artist. ‘I don’t think Vulcan has a
figure that interests me.’
’Not even if it was tubified and titivated up?’
There was no answer. The artist was too haughty for fur-
ther words.
It was a dismal party, in which the artist henceforth
steadily ignored the presence of the other man, and talked
only briefly, as if the words were wrung out of the depths of
his gloomy portentousness, to the women.
’You didn’t like him, but he’s better than that, really. He’s
really kind,’ Connie explained as they left.
’He’s a little black pup with a corrugated distemper,’ said
Mellors.
’No, he wasn’t nice today.’
’And will you go and be a model to him?’
’Oh, I don’t really mind any more. He won’t touch me.
And I don’t mind anything, if it paves the way to a life to-
gether for you and me.’
’But he’ll only shit on you on canvas.’
’I don’t care. He’ll only be painting his own feelings for
me, and I don’t mind if he does that. I wouldn’t have him
touch me, not for anything. But if he thinks he can do any-
thing with his owlish arty staring, let him stare. He can
make as many empty tubes and corrugations out of me as
he likes. It’s his funeral. He hated you for what you said:
that his tubified art is sentimental and self-important. But
of course it’s true.’