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“Will you have tea here then, or go across to the house, where there’s a tent on the lawn?” he asked.

“Can’t we have a rowing boat, and get out?” asked Ursula, who was always rushing in too fast.

“To get out?” smiled Gerald.

“You see,” cried Gudrun, flushing at Ursula’s outspoken rudeness, “we don’t know the people, we are almost complete strangers here.”

“Oh, I can soon set you up with a few acquaintances,” he said easily.

Gudrun looked at him, to see if it were ill-meant. Then she smiled at him.

“Ah,” she said, “you know what we mean. Can’t we go up there, and explore that coast?” She pointed to a grove on the hillock of the meadow-side, near the shore, half-way down the lake. “That looks perfectly lovely. We might even bathe. Isn’t it beautiful in this light! Really, it’s like one of the reaches of the Nile—as one imagines the Nile.”

Gerald smiled at her factitious enthusiasm for the distant spot.

“You’re sure it’s far enough off?” he asked ironically, adding at once: “Yes, you might go there, if we could get a boat. They seem to be all out.”

He looked round the lake and counted the rowing boats on its surface.

“How lovely it would be!” cried Ursula wistfully.

“And don’t you want tea?” he said.

“Oh,” said Gudrun, “we could just drink a cup, and be off.”

He looked from one to the other, smiling. He was somewhat offended—yet sporting.

“Can you manage a boat pretty well?” he asked.

“Yes,” replied Gudrun, coldly, “pretty well.”

“Oh yes,” cried Ursula. “We can both of us row like water-spiders.”

“You can? There’s a light little canoe of mine, that I didn’t take out for fear somebody should drown themselves. Do you think you’d be safe in that?”

“Oh perfectly,” said Gudrun.

“What an angel!” cried Ursula.

“Don’t, for my sake, have an accident—because I’m responsible for the water.”

“Sure,” pledged Gudrun.

“Besides, we can both swim quite well,” said Ursula.

“Well—then I’ll get them to put you up a tea-basket, and you can picnic all to yourselves,—that’s the idea, isn’t it?”

“How fearfully good! How frightfully nice if you could!” cried Gudrun warmly, her colour flushing up again. It made the blood stir in his veins, the subtle way she turned to him and infused her gratitude into his body.

“Where’s Birkin?” he said, his eyes twinkling. “He might help me to get it down.”

“But what about your hand? Isn’t it hurt?” asked Gudrun, rather muted, as if avoiding the intimacy. This was the first time the hurt had been mentioned. The curious way she skirted round the subject sent a new, subtle caress through his veins. He took his hand out of his pocket. It was bandaged. He looked at it, then put it in his pocket again. Gudrun quivered at the sight of the wrapped up paw.

“Oh, I can manage with one hand. The canoe is as light as a feather,” he said. “There’s Rupert!—Rupert!”

Birkin turned from his social duties and came towards them.

“What have you done to it?” asked Ursula, who had been aching to put the question for the last half hour.

“To my hand?” said Gerald. “I trapped it in some machinery.”

“Ugh!” said Ursula. “And did it hurt much?”

“Yes,” he said. “It did at the time. It’s getting better now. It crushed the fingers.”

“Oh,” cried Ursula, as if in pain, “I hate people who hurt themselves. I can feel it.” And she shook her hand.

“What do you want?” said Birkin.

The two men carried down the slim brown boat, and set it on the water.

“You’re quite sure you’ll be safe in it?” Gerald asked.

“Quite sure,” said Gudrun. “I wouldn’t be so mean as to take it, if there was the slightest doubt. But I’ve had a canoe at Arundel, and I assure you I’m perfectly safe.”

So saying, having given her word like a man, she and Ursula entered the frail craft, and pushed gently off.1 The two men stood watching them. Gudrun was paddling. She knew the men were watching her, and it made her slow and rather clumsy. The colour flew in her face like a flag.

“Thanks awfully,” she called back to him, from the water, as the boat slid away. “It’s lovely—like sitting in