He approached towards Birkin, with a haste of welcome. It was not till he was quite close that he perceived the girl.
He recoiled, went pale, and said, in a high squealing voice:
'Pussum, what are YOU doing here?'
The cafe looked up like animals when they hear a cry.
Halliday hung motionless, an almost imbecile smile flickering palely on his face.
The girl only stared at him with a black look in which flared an unfathomable hell of knowledge, and a certain impotence.
She was limited by him.
'Why have you come back?' repeated Halliday, in the same high, hysterical voice. 'I told you not to come back.'
The girl did not answer, only stared in the same viscous, heavy fashion, straight at him, as he stood recoiled, as if for safety, against the next table.
'You know you wanted her to come back—come and sit down,' said Birkin to him.
'No I didn't want her to come back, and I told her not to come back.
What have you come for, Pussum?'
'For nothing from YOU,' she said in a heavy voice of resentment.
'Then why have you come back at ALL?' cried Halliday, his voice rising to a kind of squeal.
'She comes as she likes,' said Birkin. 'Are you going to sit down, or are you not?'
'No, I won't sit down with Pussum,' cried Halliday.
'I won't hurt you, you needn't be afraid,' she said to him, very curtly, and yet with a sort of protectiveness towards him, in her voice.
Halliday came and sat at the table, putting his hand on his heart, and crying:
'Oh, it's given me such a turn!
Pussum, I wish you wouldn't do these things. Why did you come back?'
'Not for anything from you,' she repeated.
'You've said that before,' he cried in a high voice.
She turned completely away from him, to Gerald Crich, whose eyes were shining with a subtle amusement.
'Were you ever vewy much afwaid of the savages?' she asked in her calm, dull childish voice.
'No—never very much afraid.
On the whole they're harmless—they're not born yet, you can't feel really afraid of them. You know you can manage them.'
'Do you weally?
Aren't they very fierce?'
'Not very.
There aren't many fierce things, as a matter of fact.
There aren't many things, neither people nor animals, that have it in them to be really dangerous.'
'Except in herds,' interrupted Birkin.
'Aren't there really?' she said. 'Oh, I thought savages were all so dangerous, they'd have your life before you could look round.'
'Did you?' he laughed. 'They are over-rated, savages.
They're too much like other people, not exciting, after the first acquaintance.'
'Oh, it's not so very wonderfully brave then, to be an explorer?'
'No. It's more a question of hardships than of terrors.'
'Oh!
And weren't you ever afraid?'
'In my life?
I don't know.
Yes, I'm afraid of some things—of being shut up, locked up anywhere—or being fastened.
I'm afraid of being bound hand and foot.'
She looked at him steadily with her dark eyes, that rested on him and roused him so deeply, that it left his upper self quite calm.
It was rather delicious, to feel her drawing his self-revelations from him, as from the very innermost dark marrow of his body.
She wanted to know.
And her dark eyes seemed to be looking through into his naked organism.
He felt, she was compelled to him, she was fated to come into contact with him, must have the seeing him and knowing him.
And this roused a curious exultance.
Also he felt, she must relinquish herself into his hands, and be subject to him.