“Anything but the earth itself,” she laughed, watching his live hands that hovered to attend to the light.
“I’m dying to see what my second one is,” cried Gudrun, in a vibrating rather strident voice, that seemed to repel the others from her.
Birkin went and kindled it. It was of a lovely deep blue colour, with a red floor, and a great white cuttle-fish flowing in white soft streams all over it. The cuttle-fish had a face that stared straight from the heart of the light, very fixed and coldly intent.
“How truly terrifying!” exclaimed Gudrun, in a voice of horror. Gerald, at her side, gave a low laugh.
“But isn’t it really fearful!” she cried in dismay.
Again he laughed, and said:
“Change it with Ursula, for the crabs.”
Gudrun was silent for a moment.
“Ursula,” she said, “could you bear to have this fearful thing?”
“I think the colouring is lovely,” said Ursula.