'She's not a teacher in the Grammar School, then—only the other?'
'Both—Gudrun art mistress, Ursula a class mistress.'
'And what's the father?'
'Handicraft instructor in the schools.'
'Really!'
'Class-barriers are breaking down!'
Gerald was always uneasy under the slightly jeering tone of the other.
'That their father is handicraft instructor in a school!
What does it matter to me?'
Birkin laughed.
Gerald looked at his face, as it lay there laughing and bitter and indifferent on the pillow, and he could not go away.
'I don't suppose you will see very much more of Gudrun, at least.
She is a restless bird, she'll be gone in a week or two,' said Birkin.
'Where will she go?'
'London, Paris, Rome—heaven knows.
I always expect her to sheer off to Damascus or San Francisco; she's a bird of paradise.
God knows what she's got to do with Beldover.
It goes by contraries, like dreams.'
Gerald pondered for a few moments.
'How do you know her so well?' he asked.
'I knew her in London,' he replied, 'in the Algernon Strange set.
She'll know about Pussum and Libidnikov and the rest—even if she doesn't know them personally.
She was never quite that set—more conventional, in a way.
I've known her for two years, I suppose.'
'And she makes money, apart from her teaching?' asked Gerald.
'Some—irregularly.
She can sell her models.
She has a certain reclame.'
'How much for?'
'A guinea, ten guineas.'
'And are they good?
What are they?'
'I think sometimes they are marvellously good.
That is hers, those two wagtails in Hermione's boudoir—you've seen them—they are carved in wood and painted.'
'I thought it was savage carving again.'
'No, hers.
That's what they are—animals and birds, sometimes odd small people in everyday dress, really rather wonderful when they come off.
They have a sort of funniness that is quite unconscious and subtle.'
'She might be a well-known artist one day?' mused Gerald.
'She might.
But I think she won't.
She drops her art if anything else catches her.
Her contrariness prevents her taking it seriously—she must never be too serious, she feels she might give herself away.
And she won't give herself away—she's always on the defensive.
That's what I can't stand about her type.
By the way, how did things go off with Pussum after I left you?
I haven't heard anything.'
'Oh, rather disgusting.
Halliday turned objectionable, and I only just saved myself from jumping in his stomach, in a real old-fashioned row.'
Birkin was silent.