'Do you mean,' said Gerald, with the punctiliousness of a man who has
been drinking, 'that you are afraid of the sight of a black-beetle, or
you are afraid of a black-beetle biting you, or doing you some harm?'
'Do they bite?' cried the girl.
'How perfectly loathsome!' exclaimed Halliday.
'I don't know,' replied Gerald, looking round the table. 'Do
black-beetles bite? But that isn't the point. Are you afraid of their
biting, or is it a metaphysical antipathy?'
The girl was looking full upon him all the time with inchoate eyes.
'Oh, I think they're beastly, they're horrid,' she cried. 'If I see
one, it gives me the creeps all over. If one were to crawl on me, I'm
SURE I should die--I'm sure I should.'
'I hope not,' whispered the young Russian.
'I'm sure I should, Maxim,' she asseverated.
'Then one won't crawl on you,' said Gerald, smiling and knowing. In
some strange way he understood her.
'It's metaphysical, as Gerald says,' Birkin stated.
There was a little pause of uneasiness.
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