r. Vous ne l'avez pas vu?' said
Gudrun in her good, but rather heavy French.

'Non, mademoiselle, Winifred n'a jamais voulu me le faire voir. Tant de
fois je le lui ai demande, "Qu'est ce donc que ce Bismarck, Winifred?"
Mais elle n'a pas voulu me le dire. Son Bismarck, c'etait un mystere.'

'Oui, c'est un mystere, vraiment un mystere! Miss Brangwen, say that
Bismarck is a mystery,' cried Winifred.

'Bismarck, is a mystery, Bismarck, c'est un mystere, der Bismarck, er
ist ein Wunder,' said Gudrun, in mocking incantation.

'Ja, er ist ein Wunder,' repeated Winifred, with odd seriousness, under
which lay a wicked chuckle.

'Ist er auch ein Wunder?' came the slightly insolent sneering of
Mademoiselle.

'Doch!' said Winifred briefly, indifferent.

'Doch ist er nicht ein Konig. Beesmarck, he was not a king, Winifred,
as you have said. He was only-il n'etait que chancelier.'

'Qu'est ce qu'un chancelier?' said Winifred, with slightly contemptuous
indifference.

'A chancelier is a chancellor, and a chancellor is, I believe, a sort
of judge,' said Gerald coming up and shaking hands with Gudrun. 'You'll
have made a song of Bismarck soon,' said he.

Mademoiselle waited, and discreetly made her inclination, and her
greeting.

'So they wouldn't let you see Bismarck, Mademoiselle?' he said.

'Non, Monsieur.'

'Ay, very mean of them. What are you going to do to him, Miss Brangwen?
I want him sent to the kitchen and cooked.'

'Oh no,' cried Winifred.

'We're going to draw him,' said Gudrun.

'Draw him and quarter him and dish him up,' he said, being purposely
fatuous.

'Oh no,' cried Winifred with emphasis, chuckling.

Gudrun detected the tang of mockery in him, and she looked up and
smiled into his face. He felt his nerves caressed. Their eyes met in
knowledge.

'How do you like Shortlands?' he asked.

'Oh, very much,' she said, with nonchalance.

'Glad you do. Have you noticed these flowers?'

He led her along the path. She followed intently. Winifred came, and
the governess lingered in the rear. They stopped before some veined
salpiglossis flowers.

'Aren't they wonderful?' she cried, looking at them absorbedly. Strange
how her reverential, almost ecstatic admiration of the flowers caressed
his nerves. She stooped down, and touched the trumpets, with infinitely
fine and delicate-touching finger-tips. It filled him with ease to see
her. When she rose, her eyes, hot with the beauty of the flowers,
look