Gerald was her escape from the heavy slough of the pale, underworld, automatic colliers. He started out of the mud. He was master. She saw his back, the movement of his white loins. But not that—it was the whiteness he seemed to enclose as he bent forwards, rowing. He seemed to stoop to something. His glistening, whitish hair seemed like the electricity of the sky.
“There’s Gudrun,” came Hermione’s voice floating distinct over the water. “We will go and speak to her. Do you mind?”
Gerald looked round and saw the girl standing by the water’s edge, looking at him. He pulled the boat towards her, magnetically, without thinking of her. In his world, his conscious world, she was still nobody. He knew that Hermione had a curious pleasure in treading down all the social differences, at least apparently, and he left it to her.
“How do you do, Gudrun?” sang Hermione, using the Christian name in the fashionable manner. “What are you doing?”
“How do you do, Hermione? I was sketching.”
“Were you?” The boat drifted nearer, till the keel ground on the bank. “May we see? I should like to so much.”
It was no use resisting Hermione’s deliberate intention.
“Well—” said Gudrun reluctantly, for she always hated to have her unfinished work exposed—“there’s nothing in the least interesting.”
“Isn’t there? But let me see, will you?”
Gudrun reached out the sketch-book, Gerald stretched from the boat to take it. And as he did so, he remembered Gudrun’s last words to him, and her face lifted up to him as he sat on the swerving horse. An intensification of pride went over his nerves, because he felt, in some way she was compelled by him. The exchange of feeling between them was strong and apart from their consciousness.