Both wore light,
gay summer dresses, Ursula had an orange-coloured knitted coat, Gudrun
a pale yellow, Ursula wore canary yellow stockings, Gudrun bright rose,
the figures of the two women seemed to glitter in progress over the
wide bay of the railway crossing, white and orange and yellow and rose
glittering in motion across a hot world silted with coal-dust.
The two men stood quite still in the heat, watching. The elder was a
short, hard-faced energetic man of middle age, the younger a labourer
of twenty-three or so. They stood in silence watching the advance of
the sisters. They watched whilst the girls drew near, and whilst they
passed, and whilst they receded down the dusty road, that had dwellings
on one side, and dusty young corn on the other.
Then the elder man, with the whiskers round his face, said in a
prurient manner to the young man:
'What price that, eh? She'll do, won't she?'
'Which?' asked the young man, eagerly, with laugh.
'Her with the red stockings. What d'you say? I'd give my week's wages
for five minutes; what!--just for five minutes.
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