an excited clamour of voices, a clinking of
mug-lids, a great crying of 'Prosit--Prosit!' Loerke was everywhere at
once, like a gnome, suggesting drinks for the women, making an obscure,
slightly risky joke with the men, confusing and mystifying the waiter.

He wanted very much to dance with Gudrun. From the first moment he had
seen her, he wanted to make a connection with her. Instinctively she
felt this, and she waited for him to come up. But a kind of sulkiness
kept him away from her, so she thought he disliked her.

'Will you schuhplatteln, gnadige Frau?' said the large, fair youth,
Loerke's companion. He was too soft, too humble for Gudrun's taste. But
she wanted to dance, and the fair youth, who was called Leitner, was
handsome enough in his uneasy, slightly abject fashion, a humility that
covered a certain fear. She accepted him as a partner.

The zithers sounded out again, the dance began. Gerald led them,
laughing, with one of the Professor's daughters. Ursula danced with one
of the students, Birkin with the other daughter of the Professor, the
Professor with Frau Kramer, and the rest of the men danced together,
with quite as much zest as if they had had women partners.

Because Gudrun had danced with the well-built, soft youth, his
companion, Loerke, was more pettish and exasperated than ever, and
would not even notice her existence in the room. This piqued her, but
she made up to herself by dancing with the Professor, who was strong as
a mature, well-seasoned bull, and as full of coarse energy. She could
not bear him, critically, and yet she enjoyed being rushed through the
dance, and tossed up into the air, on his coarse, powerful impetus. The
Professor enjoyed it too, he eyed her with strange, large blue eyes,
full of galvanic fire. She hated him for the seasoned, semi-paternal
animalism with which he regarded her, but she admired his weight of
strength.

The room was charged with excitement and strong, animal emotion. Loerke
was kept away from Gudrun, to whom he wanted to speak, as by a hedge of
thorns, and he felt a sardonic ruthless hatred for this young
love-companion, Leitner, who was his penniless dependent. He mocked the
youth, with an acid ridicule, that made Leitner red in the face and
impotent with resentment.

Gerald, who had now got the dance perfectly, was dancing again with the
younger of the Professor's daughters, who was almost dying of virgin
excitement, because she thought Gerald so