ashy and wretched, with all the life gnawed out of him. But as soon as
he rallied, he liked to make believe that he was just as before, quite
well and in the midst of life--not of the outer world, but in the midst
of a strong essential life. And to this belief, Gudrun contributed
perfectly. With her, he could get by stimulation those precious
half-hours of strength and exaltation and pure freedom, when he seemed
to live more than he had ever lived.
She came to him as he lay propped up in the library. His face was like
yellow wax, his eyes darkened, as it were sightless. His black beard,
now streaked with grey, seemed to spring out of the waxy flesh of a
corpse. Yet the atmosphere about him was energetic and playful. Gudrun
subscribed to this, perfectly. To her fancy, he was just an ordinary
man. Only his rather terrible appearance was photographed upon her
soul, away beneath her consciousness. She knew that, in spite of his
playfulness, his eyes could not change from their darkened vacancy,
they were the eyes of a man who is dead.
'Ah, this is Miss Brangwen,' he said, suddenly rousing as she entered,
announced by the man-servant. 'Thomas, put Miss Brangwen a chair
here--that's right.' He looked at her soft, fresh face with pleasure.
It gave him the illusion of life. 'Now, you will have a glass of sherry
and a little piece of cake. Thomas--'
'No thank you,' said Gudrun. And as soon as she had said it, her heart
sank horribly. The sick man seemed to fall into a gap of death, at her
contradiction. She ought to play up to him, not to contravene him. In
an instant she was smiling her rather roguish smile.
'I don't like sherry very much,' she said. 'But I like almost anything
else.'
The sick man caught at this straw instantly.
'Not sherry! No! Something else! What then? What is there, Thomas?'
'Port wine--curacao--'
'I would love some curacao--' said Gudrun, looking at the sick man
confidingly.
'You would. Well then Thomas, curacao--and a little cake, or a
biscuit?'
'A biscuit,' said Gudrun. She did not want anything, but she was wise.
'Yes.'
He waited till she was settled with her little glass and her biscuit.
Then he was satisfied.
'You have heard the plan,' he said with some excitement, 'for a studio
for Winifred, over the stables?'
'No!' exclaimed Gudrun, in mock wonder.
'Oh!--I thought Winnie wrote it to you, in her letter!'
'Oh--yes--of course. But I thought perhaps it was only her own little
idea--' Gudrun smiled subtly, indulgently. The sick man smiled also,
elated.
'Oh no. It is a real project. There is a good room under the roof of
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