most
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
electricity was turgid and voluptuously rich, in his limbs. He would be
able to destroy her utterly in the strength of his discharge. But she
was waiting in her separation, given.

They talked banalities for some time. Suddenly Birkin said:

'There's Julius!' and he half rose to his feet, motioning to the
newcomer. The girl, with a curious, almost evil motion, looked round
over her shoulder without moving her body. Gerald watched her dark,
soft hair swing over her ears. He felt her watching intensely the man
who was approaching, so he looked too. He saw a pale, full-built young
man with rather long, solid fair hair hanging from under his black hat,
moving cumbrously down the room, his face lit up with a smile at once
naive and warm, and vapid. He approached towards Birkin, with a haste
of welcome.

It was not till he was quite close that he perceived the girl. He
recoiled, went pale, and said, in a high squealing voice:

'Pussum, what are YOU doing here?'

The cafe looked up like animals when they hear a cry. Halliday hung
motionless, an almost imbecile smile flickering palely on his face. The
girl only stared at him with a black look in which flared an
unfathomable hell of knowledge, and a certain impotence. She was
limited by him.

'Why have you come back?' repeated Halliday, in the same high,
hysterical voice. 'I told you not to come back.'

The girl did not answer, only stared in the same viscous, heavy
fashion, straight at him, as he stood recoiled, as if for safety,
against the next table.

'You know you wanted her to come back--come and sit down,' said Birkin
to him.

'No I didn't want her to come back, and I told her not to come back.
What have you come for, Pussum?'

'For nothing from YOU,' she said in a heavy voice of resentment.

'Then why have you come back at ALL?' cried Halliday, his voice rising
to a kind of squeal.

'She comes as she likes,' said Birkin. 'Are you going to sit down, or
are you not?'

'No, I won't sit down with Pussum,' cried Halliday.

'I won't hurt you, you needn't be afraid,' she said to him, very
curtly, and yet with a sort of protectiveness towards him, in her
voice.

Halliday came and sat at the table, putting h