‘Bon jour, Mademoiselle,’ said the little French governess, wavering up with a slight bow, a bow of the sort that Gudrun loathed, insolent.

‘Winifred veut tant faire le portrait de Bismarck–! Oh, mais toute la matinee–“We will do Bismarck this morning!”–Bismarck, Bismarck, toujours Bismarck! C’est un lapin, n’est–ce pas, mademoiselle?’

‘Oui, c’est un grand lapin blanc et noir. Vous ne l’avez pas vu?’ said Gudrun in her good, but rather heavy French.

‘Non, mademoiselle, Winifred n’a jamais voulu me le faire voir. Tant de fois je le lui ai demande, “Qu’est ce donc que ce Bismarck, Winifred?” Mais elle n’a pas voulu me le dire. Son Bismarck, c’etait un mystere.’

‘Oui, c’est un mystere, vraiment un mystere! Miss Brangwen, say that Bismarck is a mystery,’ cried Winifred.

‘Bismarck, is a mystery, Bismarck, c’est un mystere, der Bismarck, er ist ein Wunder,’ said Gudrun, in mocking incantation.

‘Ja, er ist ein Wunder,’ repeated Winifred, with odd seriousness, under which lay a wicked chuckle.

‘Ist er auch ein Wunder?’ came the slightly insolent sneering of Mademoiselle.

‘Doch!’ said Winifred briefly, indifferent.

‘Doch ist er nicht ein Konig. Beesmarck, he was not a king, Winifred, as you have said. He was only–il n’etait que chancelier.’

‘Qu’est ce qu’un chancelier?’ said Winifred, with slightly contemptuous indifference.

‘A chancelier is a chancellor, and a chancellor is, I believe, a sort of judge,’ said Gerald coming up and shaking hands with Gudrun. ‘You’ll have made a song of Bismarck soon,’ said he.

Mademoiselle waited, and discreetly made her inclination, and her greeting.

‘So they wouldn’t let you see Bismarck, Mademoiselle?’ he said.

‘Non, Monsieur.’

‘Ay, very mean of them. What are you going to do to him, Miss Brangwen? I want him sent to the kitchen and cooked.’

‘Oh no,’ cried Winifred.

‘We’re going to draw him,’ said Gudrun.

‘Draw him and quarter him and dish him up,’ he said, being purposely fatuous.

‘Oh no,’ cried Winifred with emphasis, chuckling.

Gudrun detected the tang of mockery in him, and she looked up and smiled into his face. He felt his nerves caressed. Their eyes met in knowledge.

‘How do you like Shortlands?’ he asked.

‘Oh, very much,’ she said, with nonchalance.

‘Glad you do. Have you noticed these flowers?’

He led her along the path. She followed intently. Winifred came, and the governess lingered in the rear. They stopped before some veined salpiglossis flowers.

‘Aren’t they wonderful?’ she cried, looking at them absorbedly. Strange how her reverential, almost ecstatic admiration of the flowers caressed his nerves. She stooped down, and touched the trumpets, with infinitely fine and delicate–touching finger–tips. It filled him with ease to see her. When she rose, her eyes, hot with the beauty of the flowers, looked into his.