was loud and clamorous, the other people in the room were startled.

'Please don't call me Mrs Crich,' she cried aloud.

The name, in Loerke's mouth particularly, had been an intolerable
humiliation and constraint upon her, these many days.

The two men looked at her in amazement. Gerald went white at the
cheek-bones.

'What shall I say, then?' asked Loerke, with soft, mocking insinuation.

'Sagen Sie nur nicht das,' she muttered, her cheeks flushed crimson.
'Not that, at least.'

She saw, by the dawning look on Loerke's face, that he had understood.
She was NOT Mrs Crich! So-o-, that explained a great deal.

'Soll ich Fraulein sagen?' he asked, malevolently.

'I am not married,' she said, with some hauteur.

Her heart was fluttering now, beating like a bewildered bird. She knew
she had dealt a cruel wound, and she could not bear it.

Gerald sat erect, perfectly still, his face pale and calm, like the
face of a statue. He was unaware of her, or of Loerke or anybody. He
sat perfectly still, in an unalterable calm. Loerke, meanwhile, was
crouching and glancing up from under his ducked head.

Gudrun was tortured for something to say, to relieve the suspense. She
twisted her face in a smile, and glanced knowingly, almost sneering, at
Gerald.

'Truth is best,' she said to him, with a grimace.

But now again she was under his domination; now, because she had dealt
him this blow; because she had destroyed him, and she did not know how
he had taken it. She watched him. He was interesting to her. She had
lost her interest in Loerke.

Gerald rose at length, and went over in a leisurely still movement, to
the Professor. The two began a conversation on Goethe.

She was rather piqued by the simplicity of Gerald's demeanour this
evening. He did not seem angry or disgusted, only he looked curiously
innocent and pure, really beautiful. Sometimes it came upon him, this
look of clear distance, and it always fascinated her.

She waited, troubled, throughout the evening. She thought he would
avoid her, or give some sign. But he spoke to her simply and
unemotionally, as he would to anyone else in the room. A certain peace,
an abstraction possessed his soul.

She went to his room, hotly, violently in love with him. He was so
beautiful and inaccessible. He kissed her, he was a lover to her. And
she had extreme pleasure of him. But he did not come to, he remained
remote and candid, unconscious. She wanted to speak to him. B