,' called Birkin.

'Thank you very much,' called Gudrun, in the strange, twanging voice of
lonely chagrin that was very puzzling to him. She turned away to her
cottage gate, and they drove on. But immediately she stood to watch
them, as the car ran vague into the distance. And as she went up the
path to her strange house, her heart was full of incomprehensible
bitterness.

In her parlour was a long-case clock, and inserted into its dial was a
ruddy, round, slant-eyed, joyous-painted face, that wagged over with
the most ridiculous ogle when the clock ticked, and back again with the
same absurd glad-eye at the next tick. All the time the absurd smooth,
brown-ruddy face gave her an obtrusive 'glad-eye.' She stood for
minutes, watching it, till a sort of maddened disgust overcame her, and
she laughed at herself hollowly. And still it rocked, and gave her the
glad-eye from one side, then from the other, from one side, then from
the other. Ah, how unhappy she was! In the midst of her most active
happiness, ah, how unhappy she was! She glanced at the table.
Gooseberry jam, and the same home-made cake with too much soda in it!
Still, gooseberry jam was good, and one so rarely got it.

All the evening she wanted to go to the Mill. But she coldly refused to
allow herself. She went the next afternoon instead. She was happy to
find Ursula alone. It was a lovely, intimate secluded atmosphere. They
talked endlessly and delightedly. 'Aren't you FEARFULLY happy here?'
said Gudrun to her sister glancing at her own bright eyes in the
mirror. She always envied, almost with resentment, the strange positive
fullness that subsisted in the atmosphere around Ursula and Birkin.

How really beautifully this room is done,' she said aloud. 'This hard
plaited matting--what a lovely colour it is, the colour of cool light!'

And it seemed to her perfect.

'Ursula,' she said at length, in a voice of question and detachment,
'did you know that Gerald Crich had suggested our going away all
together at Christmas?'

'Yes, he's spoken to Rupert.'

A deep flush dyed Gudrun's cheek. She was silent a moment, as if taken
aback, and not knowing what to say.

'But don't you thing,' she said at last, 'it is AMAZINGLY COOL!'

Ursula laughed.

'I like him for it,' she said.

Gudrun was silent. It was evident that, whilst she was almost mortified
by Gerald's taking the liberty of making such a suggestion to Birkin,
yet the idea itself attracted her st