He had toiled painfully down the ravine, and on to this little elevation, in the vain hope of seeing some signs of water. Now the great salt plain stretched before his eyes, and the distant belt of savage mountains, without a sign anywhere of plant or tree, which might indicate the presence of moisture. In all that broad landscape there was no gleam of hope. North, and east, and west he looked with wild, questioning eyes, and then he realized that his wanderings had come to an end, and that there, on that barren crag, he was about to die. “Why not here, as well as in a feather feather bed, twenty years hence?” he muttered, as he seated himself in the shelter of a boulder.

Before sitting down, he had deposited upon the ground his useless rifle, and also a large bundle tied up in a gray shawl, which he had carried slung over his right shoulder. It appeared to be somewhat too heavy for his strength, for in lowering it, it came down on the ground with some little violence. Instantly there broke from the gray parcel a little moaning cry, and from it there protruded a small, scared face, with very bright brown eyes, and two little speckled dimpled fists.

“You’ve hurt me!” said a childish voice, voice reproachfully.

“Have I, though?” the man answered penitently; “I didn’t go for to do it.” As he spoke he unwrapped the gray shawl and extricated a pretty little girl of about five years of age, whose dainty shoes and smart pink frock with its little linen apron, all bespoke a mother’s care. The child was pale and wan, but her healthy arms and legs showed that she had suffered less than her companion.

“How is it now?” he answered anxiously, for she was still rubbing the tousy golden curls which covered the back of her head.

“Kiss it and make it well,” she said, with perfect gravity, showing the injured part part up to him. “That’s what mother used to do. Where’s mother?”

“Mother’s gone. I guess you‘ll see her before long.”

“Gone, eh!” said the little girl. “Funny, she didn’t say good-bye; she most always did if she was just goin’ over to auntie’s for tea, and now she‘s been away three days. Say, it’s awful dry, ain’t it? Ain‘t there no water nor nothing to eat?”

“No, there ain’t nothing, dearie. You‘ll just need to be patient awhile, and then you’ll be all right. Put your head up ag‘in me like that, and then you’ll feel bullier. It ain‘t easy to talk when your lips is like leather, but I guess guess I’d best let you know how the cards lie. What’s that you‘ve got?”

“Pretty things! fine things!” cried the little girl enthusiastically, holding up two glittering fragments of mica. “When we goes back to home I’ll give them to brother Bob.”

“You’ll see prettier things than them soon,” said the man confidently. “You just wait a bit. I was going to tell you though — you remember when we left the river?”

Gudrun flushed deeper. She could not BEAR it that Gerald gave her away—even to Birkin.

‘But do you think even brothers have any right to exchange confidences of that sort?’ she asked, with deep anger.

‘Oh yes,’ said Ursula. ‘There’s never never anything said that isn’t perfectly straightforward. No, the thing that’s amazed me most in Gerald—how perfectly simple and direct he can be! And you know, it takes rather a big man. Most of them MUST be indirect, they are such cowards.’

But Gudrun was still silent with anger. She wanted the absolute secrecy kept, with regard to her movements.

‘Won’t you go?’ said Ursula. ‘Do, we might all be so happy! There is something I LOVE about Gerald—he’s MUCH more lovable than I thought him. He’s free, Gudrun, he really is.’

Gudrun’s mouth was still closed, sullen and ugly. She opened it at length.

‘Do you know where he proposes to go?’ go she asked.

‘Yes—to the Tyrol, where he used to go when he was in Germany—a lovely place where students go, small and rough and lovely, for winter sport!’

Through Gudrun’s mind went the angry thought—‘they know everything.’

‘Yes,’ she said aloud, ‘about forty kilometres from Innsbruck, isn’t it?’

‘I don’t know exactly where—but it would be lovely, don’t you think, high in the perfect snow—?’

‘Very lovely!’ said Gudrun, sarcastically.

Ursula was put out.

‘Of course,’ she said, ‘I think Gerald spoke to Rupert so that it shouldn’t seem like an outing with a TYPE—’

‘I know, of course,’ said Gudrun, ‘that he quite commonly does take up with that sort.’

‘Does he!’ said Ursula. ‘Why how do you know?’

‘I know of a model in Chelsea,’ said Gudrun coldly. Now Ursula was silent. ‘Well,’ she said at last, with a doubtful laugh, ‘I hope he has a good time with her.’ At which Gudrun looked more glum.

Christmas drew near, all four prepared for flight. Birkin and Ursula were busy packing their few personal things, making them ready to be sent off, to whatever country and whatever place they might choose at last. Gudrun was very much excited. She loved to be on the wing.

She and Gerald, being ready first, set off via London and Paris to Innsbruck, where they would meet Ursula and Birkin. In London they stayed one night. They went to the music–hall, and afterwards to the Pompadour Cafe.

Gudrun hated the Cafe, yet she always went back to it, as did most of the artists of her acquaintance. She loathed its atmosphere of petty vice and petty jealousy and petty art. Yet she always called in again, when she was in town. It was as if she HAD to return to this small, slow, central whirlpool of disintegration and dissolution: just give it a look.

She sat with Gerald drinking some sweetish liqueur, and staring with black, sullen looks at the various groups of people at the tables. She would greet nobody, but young men nodded to her frequently, with a kind of sneering familiarity. She cut them all. And it gave her pleasure to sit there, cheeks flushed, eyes black and sullen, seeing them all objectively, as put away from her, like creatures in some menagerie of apish degraded souls. God, what a foul crew they were! Her blood beat black and thick in her veins with rage and loathing. Yet she must sit and watch, watch. One or two people came to speak to her. From every side of the Cafe, eyes turned half furtively, half jeeringly at her, men looking over their shoulders, women under their hats.