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CHAPTER VI
CRÈME DE MENTHE
They met again in the café several hours later. Gerald went through the push doors into the large, lofty room where the faces and heads of the drinkers showed dimly through the haze of smoke, reflected more dimly, and repeated ad infinitum in the great mirrors on the walls, so that one seemed to enter a vague, dim world of shadowy drinkers humming within an atmosphere of blue tobacco smoke. There was, however, the red plush of the seats to give substance within the bubble of pleasure.
Gerald moved in his slow, observant, glistening-attentive motion down between the tables and the people whose shadowy faces looked up as he passed. He seemed to be entering in some strange element, passing into an illuminated new region, among a host of licentious souls. He was pleased, and entertained. He looked over all the dim, evanescent, strangely illuminated faces that bent across the tables. Then he saw Birkin rise and signal to him.
At Birkin’s table was a girl with dark, soft, fluffy hair cut short in the artist fashion, hanging level and full almost like the Egyptian princess’s. She was small and delicately made, with warm colouring and large, dark hostile eyes. There was a delicacy, almost a beauty in all her form, and at the same time a certain attractive grossness of spirit, that made a little spark leap instantly alight in Gerald’s eyes.
Birkin, who looked muted, unreal, his presence left out, introduced her as Miss Darrington. She gave her hand with a sudden, unwilling movement, looking all the while at Gerald with a dark, exposed stare. A glow came over him as he sat down.
The waiter appeared. Gerald glanced at the glasses of the other two. Birkin was drinking something green, Miss Darrington had a small liqueur glass that was empty save for a tiny drop.
“Won’t you have some more—?”
“Brandy,” she said, sipping her last drop and putting down the glass. The waiter disappeared.
“No,” she said to Birkin. “He doesn’t know I’m back. He’ll be terrified when he sees me here.”
She spoke her r’s like w’s, lisping with a slightly babyish pronunciation which was at once affected and true to her character. Her voice was dull and toneless.
“Where is he then?” asked Birkin.
“He’s doing a private show at Lady Snellgrove’s,” said the girl. “Warens is there too.”
There was a pause.
“Well, then,” said Birkin, in a dispassionate protective manner, “what do you intend to do?”
The girl paused sullenly. She hated the question.
“I don’t intend to do anything,” she replied. “I shall look for some sittings tomorrow.”
“Who shall you go to?” asked Birkin.
“I shall go to Bentley’s first. But I believe he’s angwy with me for running away.”
“That is from the Madonna?”
“Yes. And then if he doesn’t want me, I know I can get work with Carmarthen.”
“Carmarthen?”
“Lord Carmarthen—he does photographs.”
“Chiffon and shoulders—”
“Yes. But he’s awfully decent.” There was a pause.
“And what are you going to do about Julius?” he asked.
“Nothing,” she said. “I shall just ignore him.”
“You’ve done with him altogether?” But she turned aside her face sullenly, and did not answer the question.
Another young man came hurrying up to the table.
“Hallo Birkin! Hallo Pussum, when did you come back?” he said eagerly.
“Today.”
“Does Halliday know?”
“I don’t know. I don’t care either.”
“Ha-ha! The wind still sits in that quarter, does it? Do you mind if I come over to this table?”
“I’m talking to Wupert, do you mind?” she replied, coolly and yet appealingly, like a child.
“Open confession—good for the soul, eh?” said the young man. “Well, so long.”
And giving a sharp look at Birkin and at Gerald, the young man moved off, with a swing of his coat skirts.
All this time Gerald had been completely ignored. And yet he felt that the girl was physically aware of his proximity. He waited, listened, and tried to piece together the conversation.
“Are you staying at the flat?” the girl asked, of Birkin.
“For three days,” replied Birkin. “And you?”
“I don’t know yet. I can always go to Bertha’s.” There was a silence.
Suddenly the girl turned to Gerald, and said, in a rather formal, polite voice, with the distant manner of a woman who accepts her position as a social inferior, yet assumes intimate camaraderie with the male she addresses:
“Do you know London well?”
“I can hardly say,” he laughed. “I’ve been up a good many times, but I was never in this place before.”
“You’re not an artist, then?” she said, in a tone that placed him an outsider.
“No,” he replied.
“He’s a soldier, and an explorer, and a Napoleon of industry,” said Birkin, giving Gerald his credentials for Bohemia.
“Are you a soldier?” asked the girl, with a cold yet lively curiosity.
“No, I resigned my commission,” said Gerald, “some years ago.”
“He was in the last war,” said Birkin.
“Were you really?” said the girl.
“And then he explored the Amazon,” said Birkin, “and now he is ruling over coal-mines.”
The girl looked at Gerald with steady, calm curiosity. He laughed, hearing himself described. He felt proud too, full of male strength. His blue, keen eyes were lit up with laughter, his ruddy face, with its sharp fair hair, was full of satisfaction, and glowing with life. He piqued her.
“How long are you staying?” she asked him.
“A day or two,” he replied. “But there is no particular hurry.”
Still she stared into his face with that slow, full gaze which was so curious and so exciting to him. He was acutely and delightfully conscious
