For reply, she suddenly jabbed a knife across his thick, pale hand. He started up with a vulgar curse.
“Show’s what you are,” said the Pussum in contempt.
“Curse you,” said the young man, standing by the table and looking down at her with acrid malevolence.
“Stop that,” said Gerald, in quick, instinctive command.
The young man stood looking down at her with sardonic contempt, a cowed, self-conscious look on his thick, pale face. The blood began to flow from his hand.
“Oh, how horrible, take it away!” squealed Halliday, turning green and averting his face.
“D’you feel ill?” asked the sardonic young man, in some concern. “Do you feel ill, Julius? Garn, it’s nothing, man, don’t give her the pleasure of letting her think she’s performed a feat—don’t give her the satisfaction, man—it’s just what she wants.”
“Oh!” squealed Halliday.
“He’s going to cat, Maxim,” said the Pussum warningly. The suave young Russian rose and took Halliday by the arm, leading him away. Birkin, white and diminished, looked on as if he were displeased. The wounded, sardonic young man moved away, ignoring his bleeding hand in the most conspicuous fashion.
“He’s an awful coward, really,” said the Pussum to Gerald. “He’s got such an influence over Julius.”
“Who is he?” asked Gerald.
“He’s a Jew, really. I can’t bear him.”
“Well, he’s quite unimportant. But what’s wrong with Halliday?”
“Julius’s the most awful coward you’ve ever seen,” she cried. “He always faints if I lift a knife—he’s tewwified of me.”
“H’m!” said Gerald.
“They’re all afwaid of me,” she said. “Only the Jew thinks he’s going to show his courage. But he’s the biggest coward of them all, really, because he’s afwaid what people will think about him—and Julius doesn’t care about that.”
“They’ve a lot of valour between them,” said Gerald good-humouredly.
The Pussum looked at him with a slow, slow smile. She was very handsome, flushed, and confident in dreadful knowledge. Two little points of light glinted on Gerald’s eyes.
“Why do they call you Pussum, because you’re like a cat?” he asked her.
“I expect so,” she said.
The smile grew more intense on his face.
“You are, rather; or a young, female panther.”
“Oh God, Gerald!” said Birkin, in some disgust.
They both looked uneasily at Birkin.
“You’re silent tonight, Wupert,” she said to him, with a slight insolence, being safe with the other man.
Halliday was coming back, looking forlorn and sick.
“Pussum,” he said, “I wish you wouldn’t do these things—Oh!” He sank in his chair with a groan.
“You’d better go home,” she said to him.
“I will go home,” he said. “But won’t you all come along. Won’t you come round to the flat?” he said to Gerald. “I should be so glad if you would. Do—that’ll be splendid. I say?” He looked round for a waiter. “Get me a taxi.” Then he groaned again. “Oh I do feel—perfectly ghastly! Pussum, you see what you do to me.”
“Then why are you such an idiot?” she said with sullen calm.
“But I’m not an idiot! Oh, how awful! Do come, everybody, it will be so splendid. Pussum, you are coming. What? Oh but you must come, yes, you must. What? Oh, my dear girl, don’t make a fuss now, I feel perfectly—Oh, it’s so ghastly—Ho!—er! Oh!”
“You know you can’t drink,” she said to him, coldly.
“I tell you it isn’t drink—it’s your disgusting behaviour, Pussum, it’s nothing else. Oh, how awful! Libidnikov, do let us go.”
“He’s only drunk one glass—only one glass,” came the rapid, hushed voice of the young Russian.
They all moved off to the door. The girl kept near to Gerald, and seemed to be at one in her motion with him. He was aware of this, and filled with demon-satisfaction that his motion held good for two. He held her in the hollow of his will, and she was soft, secret, invisible in her stirring there.
They crowded five of them into the taxi-cab. Halliday lurched in first, and dropped into his seat against the other window. Then the Pussum took her place, and Gerald sat next to her. They heard the young Russian giving orders to the driver, then they were all seated in the dark, crowded close together, Halliday groaning and leaning out of the window. They felt the swift, muffled motion of the car.
The Pussum sat near to Gerald, and she seemed to become soft, subtly to infuse herself into his bones, as if she were passing into him in a black, electric flow. Her being suffused into his veins like a magnetic darkness, and concentrated at the base of his spine like a fearful source of power. Meanwhile her voice sounded out reedy and nonchalant, as she talked indifferently with Birkin and with Maxim. Between her and Gerald was this silence and this black, electric comprehension in the darkness. Then she found his hand, and grasped it in her own firm, small clasp. It was so utterly dark, and yet such a naked statement, that rapid vibrations ran through his blood and over his brain, he was no longer responsible. Still her voice rang on like a bell, tinged with a tone of mockery. And as she swung her head, her fine mane of hair just swept his face, and all his nerves were on fire, as with a subtle friction of electricity. But the great centre of his force held steady, a magnificent pride to him, at the base of his spine.
They arrived at a large block of buildings, went up in a lift, and presently a door was being opened for them by a Hindu. Gerald looked in surprise, wondering if he were a gentleman, one of the Hindus down from Oxford, perhaps. But no, he was the man-servant.
“Make tea, Hasan,” said Halliday.
“There is a room for me?” said Birkin.
To both of which questions the man grinned, and murmured.
He made Gerald uncertain, because, being tall and slender and reticent, he looked like a gentleman.
“Who is your servant?” he asked of Halliday. “He looks a swell.”
“Oh yes—that’s because he’s dressed in another man’s clothes. He’s anything but a swell, really. We found him in the road, starving. So I took him here, and another man gave him clothes. He’s anything but what he seems to be—his only advantage is that he can’t speak English and can’t understand it, so he’s perfectly safe.”
“He’s very dirty,” said the young Russian swiftly and silently.
Directly,
