Birkin was the good angel. He came smiling to them with his affected social grace, that somehow was never quite right. But he took off his hat and smiled at them with a real smile in his eyes, so that Brangwen cried out heartily in relief:
“How do you do? You’re better, are you?”
“Yes, I’m better. How do you do, Mrs Brangwen? I know Gudrun and Ursula very well.”
His eyes smiled full of natural warmth. He had a soft, flattering manner with women, particularly with women who were not young.
“Yes,” said Mrs Brangwen, cool but yet gratified. “I have heard them speak of you often enough.”
He laughed. Gudrun looked aside, feeling she was being belittled. People were standing about in groups, some women were sitting in the shade of the walnut tree, with cups of tea in their hands, a waiter in evening dress was hurrying round, some girls were simpering with parasols, some young men, who had just come in from rowing, were sitting cross-legged on the grass, coatless, their shirt-sleeves rolled up in manly fashion, their hands resting on their white flannel trousers, their gaudy ties floating about, as they laughed and tried to be witty with the young damsels.
“Why,” thought Gudrun churlishly, “don’t they have the manners to put their coats on, and not to assume such intimacy in their appearance.”
She abhorred the ordinary young man, with his hair plastered back, and his easy-going chumminess.
Hermione Roddice came up, in a handsome gown of white lace, trailing an enormous silk shawl blotched with great embroidered flowers, and balancing an enormous plain hat on her head. She looked striking, astonishing, almost macabre, so tall, with the fringe of her great cream-coloured vividly-blotched shawl trailing on the ground after her, her thick hair coming low over her eyes, her face strange and long and pale, and the blotches of brilliant colour drawn round her.
“Doesn’t she look weird!” Gudrun heard some girls titter behind her. And she could have killed them.