'Nothing, nothing,' he cried. 'But you can't eat oysters when you're
drinking brandy.'
'I'm not drinking brandy,' she replied, and she sprinkled the last
drops of her liqueur over his face. He gave an odd squeal. She sat
looking at him, as if indifferent.
'Pussum, why do you do that?' he cried in panic. He gave Gerald the
impression that he was terrified of her, and that he loved his terror.
He seemed to relish his own horror and hatred of her, turn it over and
extract every flavour from it, in real panic. Gerald thought him a
strange fool, and yet piquant.
'But Pussum,' said another man, in a very small, quick Eton voice, 'you
promised not to hurt him.'
'I haven't hurt him,' she answered.
'What will you drink?' the young man asked. He was dark, and
smooth-skinned, and full of a stealthy vigour.
'I don't like porter, Maxim,' she replied.
'You must ask for champagne,' came the whispering, gentlemanly voice of
the other.
Gerald suddenly realised that this was a hint to him.
'Shall we have champagne?' he asked, laughing.
'Yes please, dwy,' she lisped childishly.
Gerald watched her eating the oysters. She was delicate and finicking
in her eating, her fingers were fine and seemed very sensitive in the
tips, so she put her food apart with fine, small motions, she ate
carefully, delicately. It pleased him very much to see her, and it
irritated Birkin. They were all drinking champagne. Maxim, the prim
young Russian with the smooth, warm-coloured face and black, oiled hair
was the only one who seemed to be perfectly calm and sober. Birkin was
white and abstract, unnatural, Gerald was smiling with a constant
bright, amused, cold light in his eyes, leaning a little protectively
towards the Pussum, who was very handsome, and soft, unfolded like some
red lotus in dreadful flowering nakedness, vainglorious now, flushed
with wine and with the excitement of men. Halliday looked foolish. One
glass of wine was enough to make him drunk and giggling. Yet there was
always a pleasant, warm naivete about him, that made him attractive.
'I'm not afwaid of anything except black-beetles,' said the Pussum,
looking up suddenly and staring with her black eyes, on which there
seemed an unseeing film of flame, fully upon Gerald. He laughed
dangerously, from the blood. Her childish speech caressed his nerves,
and her burning, filmed eyes, turned now full upon him, oblivious of
all her antecedents, gave him a sort of licence.
'I'm not,' she protested. 'I'm not afraid of other things. But
black-beetles--ugh!' she shuddered convulsively, as if the very thought
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