Page:Women in Love, Lawrence, 1920.djvu/46

38 "Yes," said Ursula,

"And does she like being back in Beldover?"

"No," said Ursula.

"No, I wonder she can bear it. It takes all my strength, to bear the ugliness of this district, when I stay here. — Won't you come and see me? Won't you come with your sister to stay at Breadalby for a few days? — Do — "

"Thank you very much," said Ursula.

"Then I will write to you," said Hermione. "You think your sister will come? I should be so glad. I think she is wonderful. I think some of her work is really wonderful. I have two water-wagtails, carved in wood, and painted — perhaps you have seen it?"

"No," said Ursula.

"I think it is perfectly wonderful — like a flash of instinct — "

"Her little carvings are strange," said Ursula.

"Perfectly beautiful— full of primitive passion — "

"Isn't it queer that she always likes little things? She must always work small things, that one can put between one's hands, birds and tiny animals. She likes to look through the wrong end of the opera glasses, and see the world that way — why is it, do you think?"

Hermione looked down at Ursula with that long, detached scrutinizing gaze that excited the younger woman.

"Yes," said Hermione at length. "It is curious. The little things seem to be more subtle to her — "

"But they aren't, are they? A mouse isn't any more subtle than a lion, is it?"

Again Hermione looked down at Ursula with that long scrutiny, as if she were following some train of thought of her own, and barely attending to the other's speech.

"I don't know," she replied.

"Rupert, Rupert," she sang mildly, calling him to her. He approached in silence.

"Are little things more subtle than big things?" she asked, with the odd grunt of laughter in her voice, as if she were making game of him in the question.

"Dunno," he said,