One evening Gerald was arguing with Loerke about Italy and Tripoli. The
Englishman was in a strange, inflammable state, the German was excited.
It was a contest of words, but it meant a conflict of spirit between
the two men. And all the while Gudrun could see in Gerald an arrogant
English contempt for a foreigner. Although Gerald was quivering, his
eyes flashing, his face flushed, in his argument there was a
brusqueness, a savage contempt in his manner, that made Gudrun's blood
flare up, and made Loerke keen and mortified. For Gerald came down like
a sledge-hammer with his assertions, anything the little German said
was merely contemptible rubbish.
At last Loerke turned to Gudrun, raising his hands in helpless irony, a
shrug of ironical dismissal, something appealing and child-like.
'Sehen sie, gnadige Frau-' he began.
'Bitte sagen Sie nicht immer, gnadige Frau,' cried Gudrun, her eyes
flashing, her cheeks burning. She looked like a vivid Medusa. Her voice
was loud and clamorous, the other people in the room were startled.
'Please don't call me Mrs Crich,' she cried aloud.
The name, in Loerke's mouth particularly, had been an intolerable
humiliation and constraint upon her, these many days.
The two men looked at her in amazement. Gerald went white at the
cheek-bones.
'What shall I say, then?' asked Loerke, with soft, mocking insinuation.
'Sagen Sie nur nicht das,' she muttered, her cheeks flushed crimson.
'Not that, at least.' She saw, by the dawning look on Loerke's face, that he had understood.
She was NOT Mrs Crich! So-o-, that explained a great deal.
'Soll ich Fraulein sagen?' he asked, malevolently.
'I am not married,' she said, with some hauteur.
Her heart was fluttering now, beating like a bewildered bird. She knew
she had dealt a cruel wound, and she could not bear it.
Gerald sat erect, perfectly still, his face pale and calm, like the
face of a statue. He was unaware of her, or of Loerke or anybody. He
sat perfectly still, in an unalterable calm. Loerke, meanwhile, was
crouching and glancing up from under his ducked head.
Gudrun was tortured for something to say, to relieve the suspense. She
twisted her face in a smile, and glanced knowingly, almost sneering, at
Gerald.
'Truth is best,' she said to him, with a grimace.
But now again she was under his domination; now, because she had dealt
him this blow; because she had destroyed him, and she did not know how
he had taken it. She watched him. He was interesting to her. She had
lost her interest in Loerke.
Gerald rose at length, and went over in a leisurely still movement, to
the Professor. The two began a conversation on Goethe.