faction in the nerves, from
a queer interchange of half-suggested ideas, looks, expressions and
gestures, which were quite intolerable, though incomprehensible, to
Gerald. He had no terms in which to think of their commerce, his terms
were much too gross.

The suggestion of primitive art was their refuge, and the inner
mysteries of sensation their object of worship. Art and Life were to
them the Reality and the Unreality.

'Of course,' said Gudrun, 'life doesn't REALLY matter--it is one's art
which is central. What one does in one's life has PEU DE RAPPORT, it
doesn't signify much.'

'Yes, that is so, exactly,' replied the sculptor. 'What one does in
one's art, that is the breath of one's being. What one does in one's
life, that is a bagatelle for the outsiders to fuss about.'

It was curious what a sense of elation and freedom Gudrun found in this
communication. She felt established for ever. Of course Gerald was
BAGATELLE. Love was one of the temporal things in her life, except in
so far as she was an artist. She thought of Cleopatra--Cleopatra must
have been an artist; she reaped the essential from a man, she harvested
the ultimate sensation, and threw away the husk; and Mary Stuart, and
the great Rachel, panting with her lovers after the theatre, these were
the exoteric exponents of love. After all, what was the lover but fuel
for the transport of this subtle knowledge, for a female art, the art
of pure, perfect knowledge in sensuous understanding.

One evening Gerald was arguing with Loerke about Italy and Tripoli. The
Englishman was in a strange, inflammable state, the German was excited.
It was a contest of words, but it meant a conflict of spirit between
the two men. And all the while Gudrun could see in Gerald an arrogant
English contempt for a foreigner. Although Gerald was quivering, his
eyes flashing, his face flushed, in his argument there was a
brusqueness, a savage contempt in his manner, that made Gudrun's blood
flare up, and made Loerke keen and mortified. For Gerald came down like
a sledge-hammer with his assertions, anything the little German said
was merely contemptible rubbish.

At last Loerke turned to Gudrun, raising his hands in helpless irony, a
shrug of ironical dismissal, something appealing and child-like.

'Sehen sie, gnadige Frau-' he began.

'Bitte sagen Sie nicht immer, gnadige Frau,' cried Gudrun, her eyes
flashing, her cheeks burning. She looked like a vivid Medusa. Her voice