Page:Lady Chatterley's Lover by DH Lawrence.djvu/249

 "I must say, I don't think you need send the servants after me!" she burst out.

"My God!" he exploded. "Where have you been, woman? You've been gone hours, hours, and in a storm like this! What the hell do you go to that bloody wood for? What have you been up to? It's hours even since the rain stopped, hours! Do you know what time it is? You're enough to drive anybody mad. Where have you been? What in the name of hell have you been doing?"

"And what if I don't choose to tell you?" She pulled her hat from her head and shook her hair.

He looked at her with his eyes bulging, and yellow coming into the whites. It was very bad for him to get into these rages: Mrs. Bolton had a weary time with him, for days after. Connie felt a sudden qualm.

"But really!" she said, milder. "Anyone would think I'd been I don't know where! I just sat in the hut during all the storm, and made myself a little fire, and was happy."

She spoke now easily. After all, why work him up any more! He looked at her suspiciously.

"And look at your hair!" he said; "look at yourself!"

"Yes!" she replied calmly. "I ran out in the rain with no clothes on."

He stared at her speechless.

"You must be mad!" he said.

"Why? To like a shower-bath from the rain?"

"And how did you dry yourself?"

"On an old towel and at the fire."

He still stared at her in a dumbfounded way.

"And supposing anybody came," he said.

"Who would come?"

"Who? Why anybody! And Mellors. Does he come? He must come in the evenings."

"Yes, he came later, when it had cleared up, to feed the pheasants with corn."

She spoke with amazing nonchalance. Mrs. Bolton, who was listening in the next room, heard in sheer admiration. To think a woman could carry it off so naturally!

"And suppose he'd come while you were running about in the rain with nothing on, like a maniac?"