It was a grotesque little diagram of a grotesque little animal, so
wicked and so comical, a slow smile came over Gudrun's face,
unconsciously. And at her side Winifred chuckled with glee, and said: 'It isn't like him, is it? He's much lovelier than that. He's SO
beautiful-mmm, Looloo, my sweet darling.' And she flew off to embrace
the chagrined little dog. He looked up at her with reproachful,
saturnine eyes, vanquished in his extreme agedness of being. Then she
flew back to her drawing, and chuckled with satisfaction.
'It isn't like him, is it?' she said to Gudrun.
'Yes, it's very like him,' Gudrun replied.
The child treasured her drawing, carried it about with her, and showed
it, with a silent embarrassment, to everybody.
'Look,' she said, thrusting the paper into her father's hand.
'Why that's Looloo!' he exclaimed. And he looked down in surprise,
hearing the almost inhuman chuckle of the child at his side.
Gerald was away from home when Gudrun first came to Shortlands. But the
first morning he came back he watched for her. It was a sunny, soft
morning, and he lingered in the garden paths, looking at the flowers
that had come out during his absence. He was clean and fit as ever,
shaven, his fair hair scrupulously parted at the side, bright in the
sunshine, his short, fair moustache closely clipped, his eyes with
their humorous kind twinkle, which was so deceptive. He was dressed in
black, his clothes sat well on his well-nourished body. Yet as he
lingered before the flower-beds in the morning sunshine, there was a
certain isolation, a fear about him, as of something wanting.
Gudrun came up quickly, unseen. She was dressed in blue, with woollen
yellow stockings, like the Bluecoat boys. He glanced up in surprise.
Her stockings always disconcerted him, the pale-yellow stockings and
the heavy heavy black shoes. Winifred, who had been playing about the
garden with Mademoiselle and the dogs, came flitting towards Gudrun.
The child wore a dress of black-and-white stripes. Her hair was rather
short, cut round and hanging level in her neck.
'We're going to do Bismarck, aren't we?' she said, linking her hand
through Gudrun's arm.
'Yes, we're going to do Bismarck. Do you want to?' 'Oh yes-oh I do! I want most awfully to do Bismarck. He looks SO
splendid this morning, so FIERCE. He's almost as big as a lion.' And
the child chuckled sardonically at her own hyperbole. 'He's a real
king, he really is.' 'Bon jour, Mademoiselle,' said the little French governess, wavering up
with a slight bow, a bow of the sort that Gudrun loathed, insolent.