Gerald was gradually overcome with a revulsion of loathing for Loerke. He did not take the man seriously, he despised him merely, except as he felt in Gudrun’s veins the influence of the little creature. It was this that drove Gerald wild, the feeling in Gudrun’s veins of Loerke’s presence, Loerke’s being, flowing dominant through her.

‘What makes you so smitten with that little vermin?’ he asked, really puzzled. For he, man–like, could not see anything attractive or important AT ALL in Loerke. Gerald expected to find some handsomeness or nobleness, to account for a woman’s subjection. But he saw none here, only an insect–like repulsiveness.

Gudrun flushed deeply. It was these attacks she would never forgive.

‘What do you mean?’ she replied. ‘My God, what a mercy I am NOT married to you!’

Her voice of flouting and contempt scotched him. He was brought up short. But he recovered himself.

‘Tell me, only tell me,’ he reiterated in a dangerous narrowed voice—‘tell me what it is that fascinates you in him.’

‘I am not fascinated,’ she said, with cold repelling innocence.

‘Yes, you are. You are fascinated by that little dry snake, like a bird gaping ready to fall down its throat.’

She looked at him with black fury.

‘I don’t choose to be discussed by you,’ she said.

‘It doesn’t matter whether you choose or not,’ he replied, ‘that doesn’t alter the fact that you are ready to fall down and kiss the feet of that little insect. And I don’t want to prevent you—do it, fall down and kiss his feet. But I want to know, what it is that fascinates you—what is it?’

She was silent, suffused with black rage.

‘How DARE you come brow–beating me,’ she cried, ‘how dare you, you little squire, you bully. What right have you over me, do you think?’

His face was white and gleaming, she knew by the light in his eyes that she was in his power—the wolf. And because she was in his power, she hated him with a power that she wondered did not kill him. In her will she killed him as he stood, effaced him.

‘It is not a question of right,’ said Gerald, sitting down on a chair. She watched the change in his body. She saw his clenched, mechanical body moving there like an obsession. Her hatred of him was tinged with fatal contempt.

‘It’s not a question of my right over you—though I HAVE some right, remember. I want to know, I only want to know what it is that subjugates you to that little scum of a sculptor downstairs, what it is that brings you down like a humble maggot, in worship of him. I want to know what you creep after.’

She stood over against the window, listening. Then she turned round.

‘Do you?’ she said, in her most easy, most cutting voice. ‘Do you want to know what it is in him? It’s because he has some understanding of a woman, because he is not stupid. That’s why it is.’