There was a pause, painful to Ursula and to Birkin.Hermione however seemed abstracted and calm.Birkin was white, his eyes glowed as if he were in a fever, he was far too over-wrought.How Ursula suffered in this tense atmosphere of strained wills! Her head seemed bound round by iron bands.
Birkin rang the bell for tea.They could not wait for Gudrun any longer.
When the door was opened, the cat walked in.
`Micio! Micio!' called Hermione, in her slow, deliberate sing-song.
The young cat turned to look at her, then, with his slow and stately walk he advanced to her side.
`Vieni -- vieni qua,' Hermione was saying, in her strange caressive, protective voice, as if she were always the elder, the mother superior.
`Vieni dire Buon' Giorno alla zia.Mi ricorde, mi ricorde bene -- non he vero, piccolo? E vero che mi ricordi? E vero?' And slowly she rubbed his head, slowly and with ironic indifference.
`Does he understand Italian?' said Ursula, who knew nothing of the language.
`Yes,' said Hermione at length.`His mother was Italian.She was born in my waste-paper basket in Florence, on the morning of Rupert's birthday.
She was his birthday present.'
Tea was brought in.Birkin poured out for them.It was strange how inviolable was the intimacy which existed between him and Hermione.Ursula felt that she was an outsider.The very tea-cups and the old silver was a bond between Hermione and Birkin.It seemed to belong to an old, past world which they had inhabited together, and in which Ursula was a foreigner.She was almost a parvenue in their old cultured milieu.Her convention was not their convention, their standards were not her standards.But theirs were established, they had the sanction and the grace of age.He and she together, Hermione and Birkin, were people of the same old tradition, the same withered deadening culture.And she, Ursula, was an intruder.So they always made her feel.
Hermione poured a little cream into a saucer.The simple way she assumed her rights in Birkin's room maddened and discouraged Ursula.There was a fatality about it, as if it were bound to be.Hermione lifted the cat and put the cream before him.He planted his two paws on the edge of the table and bent his gracious young head to drink.
`Siccuro che capisce italiano,' sang Hermione, `non l'avra dimenticato, la lingua della Mamma.'
She lifted the cat's head with her long, slow, white fingers, not letting him drink, holding him in her power.It was always the same, this joy in power she manifested, peculiarly in power over any male being.He blinked forbearingly, with a male, bored expression, licking his whiskers.Hermione laughed in her short, grunting fashion.
`Ecco, il bravo ragazzo, come e superbo, questo!'
She made a vivid picture, so calm and strange with the cat.She had a true static impressiveness, she was a social artist in some ways.
The cat refused to look at her, indifferently avoided her fingers, and began to drink again, his nose down to the cream, perfectly balanced, as he lapped with his odd little click.
`It's bad for him, teaching him to eat at table,' said Birkin.
`Yes,' said Hermione, easily assenting.
Then, looking down at the cat, she resumed her old, mocking, humorous sing-song.
`Ti imparano fare brutte cose, brutte cose --'
She lifted the Mino's white chin on her forefinger, slowly.The young cat looked round with a supremely forbearing air, avoided seeing anything, withdrew his chin, and began to wash his face with his paw.Hermione grunted her laughter, pleased.
`Bel giovanotto --' she said.
The cat reached forward again and put his fine white paw on the edge of the saucer.Hermione lifted it down with delicate slowness.This deliberate, delicate carefulness of movement reminded Ursula of Gudrun.
`No! Non e permesso di mettere il zampino nel tondinetto.Non piace al babbo.Un signor gatto cosi selvatico --!'
And she kept her finger on the softly planted paw of the cat, and her voice had the same whimsical, humorous note of bullying.
Ursula had her nose out of joint.She wanted to go away now.It all seemed no good.Hermione was established for ever, she herself was ephemeral and had not yet even arrived.
`I will go now,' she said suddenly.
Birkin looked at her almost in fear -- he so dreaded her anger.`But there is no need for such hurry,' he said.
`Yes,' she answered.`I will go.' And turning to Hermione, before there was time to say any more, she held out her hand and said `Good-bye.'
`Good-bye --' sang Hermione, detaining the band.`Must you really go now?'
`Yes, I think I'll go,' said Ursula, her face set, and averted from Hermione's eyes.
`You think you will --'
But Ursula had got her hand free.She turned to Birkin with a quick, almost jeering: `Good-bye,' and she was opening the door before he had time to do it for her.
When she got outside the house she ran down the road in fury and agitation.
It was strange, the unreasoning rage and violence Hermione roused in her, by her very presence.Ursula knew she gave herself away to the other woman, she knew she looked ill-bred, uncouth, exaggerated.But she did not care.
She only ran up the road, lest she should go back and jeer in the faces of the two she had left behind.For they outraged her.
