Gudrun, absorbed in a stupor of apprehension of surging water-plants,
sat crouched on the shoal, drawing, not looking up for a long time, and
then staring unconsciously, absorbedly at the rigid, naked, succulent
stems. Her feet were bare, her hat lay on the bank opposite.
She started out of her trance, hearing the knocking of oars. She looked
round. There was a boat with a gaudy Japanese parasol, and a man in
white, rowing. The woman was Hermione, and the man was Gerald. She knew
it instantly. And instantly she perished in the keen FRISSON of
anticipation, an electric vibration in her veins, intense, much more
intense than that which was always humming low in the atmosphere of
Beldover.
Gerald was her escape from the heavy slough of the pale, underworld,
automatic colliers. He started out of the mud. He was master. She saw
his back, the movement of his white loins. But not that--it was the
whiteness he seemed to enclose as he bent forwards, rowing. He seemed
to stoop to something.
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