Suddenly the girl turned to Gerald, and said, in a rather formal,
polite voice, with the distant manner of a woman who accepts her
position as a social inferior, yet assumes intimate CAMARADERIE with
the male she addresses:
'Do you know London well?'
'I can hardly say,' he laughed. 'I've been up a good many times, but I
was never in this place before.'
'You're not an artist, then?' she said, in a tone that placed him an
outsider.
'No,' he replied.
'He's a soldier, and an explorer, and a Napoleon of industry,' said
Birkin, giving Gerald his credentials for Bohemia.
'Are you a soldier?' asked the girl, with a cold yet lively curiosity.
'No, I resigned my commission,' said Gerald, 'some years ago.'
'He was in the last war,' said Birkin.
'Were you really?' said the girl.
'And then he explored the Amazon,' said Birkin, 'and now he is ruling
over coal-mines.'
The girl looked at Gerald with steady, calm curiosity. He laughed,
hearing himself described. He felt proud too, full of male strength.
His blue, keen eyes were lit up with laughter, his ruddy face, with its
sharp fair hair, was full of satisfaction, and glowing with life. He
piqued her.
'How long are you staying?' she asked him.
'A day or two,' he replied. 'But there is no particular hurry.'
Still she stared into his face with that slow, full gaze which was so
curious and so exciting to him. He was acutely and delightfully
conscious of himself, of his own attractiveness. He felt full of
strength, able to give off a sort of electric power. And he was aware
of her dark, hot-looking eyes upon him. She had beautiful eyes, dark,
fully-opened, hot, naked in their looking at him. And on them there
seemed to float a film of disintegration, a sort of misery and
sullenness, like oil on water. She wore no hat in the heated cafe, her
loose, simple jumper was strung on a string round her neck. But it was
made of rich peach-coloured crepe-de-chine, that hung heavily and
softly from her young throat and her slender wrists. Her appearance was
simple and complete, really beautiful, because of her regularity and
form, her soft dark hair falling full and level on either side of her
head, her straight, small, softened features, Egyptian in the slight
fulness of their curves, her slender neck and the simple, rich-coloured
smock hanging on her slender shoulders. She was very still, almost
null, in her manner, apart and watchful.
She appealed to Gerald strongly. He felt an awful, enjoyable power over
her, an instinctive cherishing very near to cruelty. For she was a
victim. He felt that she was in his power, and he was generous. The
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