me a silence. Gudrun entered, and Skrebensky still
rocked languidly on the chair.

"You look very lazy," said Gudrun.

"I am lazy," he answered.

"You look really floppy," she said.

"I am floppy," he answered.

"Can't you stop?" asked Gudrun.

"No--it's the perpetuum mobile."

"You look as if you hadn't a bone in your body."

"That's how I like to feel."

"I don't admire your taste."

"That's my misfortune."

And he rocked on.

Gudrun seated herself behind him, and as he rocked back, she
caught his hair between her finger and thumb, so that it tugged
him as he swung forward again. He took no notice. There was only
the sound of the rockers on the floor. In silence, like a crab,
Gudrun caught a strand of his hair each time he rocked back.
Ursula flushed, and sat in some pain. She saw the irritation
gathering on his brow.

At last he leapt up, suddenly, like a steel spring going off,
and stood on the hearthrug.

"Damn it, why can't I rock?" he asked petulantly,
fiercely.

Ursula loved him for his sudden, steel-like start out of the
languor. He stood on the hearthrug fuming, his eyes gleaming
with anger.

Gudrun laughed in her deep, mellow fashion.

"Men don't rock themselves," she said.

"Girls don't pull men's hair," he said.

Gudrun laughed again.

Ursula sat amused, but waiting. And he knew Ursula was
waiting for him. It roused his blood. He had to go to her, to
follow her call.

Once he drove her to Derby in the dog-cart. He belonged to
the horsey set of the sappers. They had lunch in an inn, and
went through the market, pleased with everything. He bought her
a copy of Wuthering Heights from a bookstall. Then they found a
little fair in progress and she said:

"My father used to take me in the swingboats."

"Did you like it?" he asked.

"Oh, it was fine," she said.

"Would you like to go now?"

"Love it," she said, though she was afraid. But the prospect
of doing an unusual, exciting thing was attractive to her.

He went straight to the stand, paid the money, and helped her
to mount. He seemed to ignore everything but just what he was
doing. Other people were mere objects of indifference to him.
She would have liked to hang back, but she was more ashamed to
retreat from him than to expose herself to the crowd or to dare
the swingboat. His eyes laughed, and standing before her with
his sharp, sudden figure, he set the boat swinging. She was not
afraid, she was thrilled. His col