Page 313 - sons-and-lovers

Miriam remained uncomfortably still.
‘If tha doesna tha durs’na,’ laughed Beatrice.
Miriam put her feet from under her dress. Her boots
had that queer, irresolute, rather pathetic look about them,
which showed how self-conscious and self-mistrustful she
was. And they were covered with mud.
‘Glory! You’re a positive muck-heap,’ exclaimed Beatrice.
‘Who cleans your boots?’
‘I clean them myself.’
‘Then you wanted a job,’ said Beatrice. ‘It would ha’ taken
a lot of men to ha’ brought me down here to-night. But love
laughs at sludge, doesn’t it, ‘Postle my duck?’
‘Inter alia,’ he said.
‘Oh, Lord! are you going to spout foreign languages?
What does it mean, Miriam?’
There was a fine sarcasm in the last question, but Miriam
did not see it.
‘Among other things,’ I believe,’ she said humbly.
Beatrice put her tongue between her teeth and laughed
wickedly.
‘Among other things,’ ‘Postle?’ she repeated. ‘Do you
mean love laughs at mothers, and fathers, and sisters, and
brothers, and men friends, and lady friends, and even at the
b’loved himself?’
She affected a great innocence.
‘In fact, it’s one big smile,’ he replied.
‘Up its sleeve, ‘Postle Morel—you believe me,’ she said;
and she went off into another burst of wicked, silent laugh-
ter.

1 Sons and Lovers