d her terrible panic. Her heart was
beating heavily still. Fool, fool that she was, to get into such a
state! How she thanked God for Gerald's obtuse blindness. Thank God he
could see nothing.

She sat slowly unlacing her shoes, and he too commenced to undress.
Thank God that crisis was over. She felt almost fond of him now, almost
in love with him.

'Ah, Gerald,' she laughed, caressively, teasingly, 'Ah, what a fine
game you played with the Professor's daughter--didn't you now?'

'What game?' he asked, looking round.

'ISN'T she in love with you--oh DEAR, isn't she in love with you!' said
Gudrun, in her gayest, most attractive mood.

'I shouldn't think so,' he said.

'Shouldn't think so!' she teased. 'Why the poor girl is lying at this
moment overwhelmed, dying with love for you. She thinks you're
WONDERFUL--oh marvellous, beyond what man has ever been. REALLY, isn't
it funny?'

'Why funny, what is funny?' he asked.

'Why to see you working it on her,' she said, with a half reproach that
confused the male conceit in him. 'Really Gerald, the poor girl--!'

'I did nothing to her,' he said.

'Oh, it was too shameful, the way you simply swept her off her feet.'

'That was Schuhplatteln,' he replied, with a bright grin.

'Ha--ha--ha!' laughed Gudrun.

Her mockery quivered through his muscles with curious re-echoes. When
he slept he seemed to crouch down in the bed, lapped up in his own
strength, that yet was hollow.

And Gudrun slept strongly, a victorious sleep. Suddenly, she was almost
fiercely awake. The small timber room glowed with the dawn, that came
upwards from the low window. She could see down the valley when she
lifted her head: the snow with a pinkish, half-revealed magic, the
fringe of pine-trees at the bottom of the slope. And one tiny figure
moved over the vaguely-illuminated space.

She glanced at his watch; it was seven o'clock. He was still completely
asleep. And she was so hard awake, it was almost frightening--a hard,
metallic wakefulness. She lay looking at him.

He slept in the subjection of his own health and defeat. She was
overcome by a sincere regard for him. Till now, she was afraid before
him. She lay and thought about him, what he was, what he represented in
the world. A fine, independent will, he had. She thought of the
revolution he had worked in the mines, in so short a time. She knew
that, if he were confronted with any problem, any hard actual
difficulty, he would overc