The Rainbow | Page 9

not particular," he said.
There the conversation again broke down.
Brangwen's companions were ready to go on.
"Art commin', Tom," they called, "or art for stoppin'?"
"Ay, I'm commin'," he replied, rising reluctantly, an angry sense of
futility and disappointment spreading over him.
He met the full, almost taunting look of the girl, and he trembled with
unusedness.
"Shall you come an' have a look at my mare," he said to her, with his
hearty kindliness that was now shaken with trepidation.
"Oh, I should like to," she said, rising.
And she followed him, his rather sloping shoulders and his cloth
riding-gaiters, out of the room. The young men got their own horses out
of the stable.
"Can you ride?" Brangwen asked her.
"I should like to if I could-I have never tried," she said.
"Come then, an' have a try," he said.
And he lifted her, he blushing, she laughing, into the saddle.
"I s'll slip off-it's not a lady's saddle," she cried.
"Hold yer tight," he said, and he led her out of the hotel gate.

The girl sat very insecurely, clinging fast. He put a hand on her waist,
to support her. And he held her closely, he clasped her as in an embrace,
he was weak with desire as he strode beside her.
The horse walked by the river.
"You want to sit straddle-leg," he said to her.
"I know I do," she said.
It was the time of very full skirts. She managed to get astride the horse,
quite decently, showing an intent concern for covering her pretty leg.
"It's a lot's better this road," she said, looking down at him.
"Ay, it is," he said, feeling the marrow melt in his bones from the look
in her eyes. "I dunno why they have that side-saddle business, twistin' a
woman in two."
"Should us leave you then-you seem to be fixed up there?" called
Brangwen's companions from the road.
He went red with anger.
"Ay-don't worry," he called back.
"How long are yer stoppin'?" they asked.
"Not after Christmas," he said.
And the girl gave a tinkling peal of laughter.
"All right-by-bye!" called his friends.
And they cantered off, leaving him very flushed, trying to be quite
normal with the girl. But presently he had gone back to the hotel and
given his horse into the charge of an ostler and had gone off with the
girl into the woods, not quite knowing where he was or what he was
doing. His heart thumped and he thought it the most glorious adventure,

and was mad with desire for the girl.
Afterwards he glowed with pleasure. By Jove, but that was something
like! He stayed the afternoon with the girl, and wanted to stay the night.
She, however, told him this was impossible: her own man would be
back by dark, and she must be with him. He, Brangwen, must not let on
that there had been anything between them.
She gave him an intimate smile, which made him feel confused and
gratified.
He could not tear himself away, though he had promised not to
interfere with the girl. He stayed on at the hotel over night. He saw the
other fellow at the evening meal: a small, middle-aged man with
iron-grey hair and a curious face, like a monkey's, but interesting, in its
way almost beautiful. Brangwen guessed that he was a foreigner. He
was in company with another, an Englishman, dry and hard. The four
sat at table, two men and two women. Brangwen watched with all his
eyes.
He saw how the foreigner treated the women with courteous contempt,
as if they were pleasing animals. Brangwen's girl had put on a ladylike
manner, but her voice betrayed her. She wanted to win back her man.
When dessert came on, however, the little foreigner turned round from
his table and calmly surveyed the room, like one unoccupied.
Brangwen marvelled over the cold, animal intelligence of the face. The
brown eyes were round, showing all the brown pupil, like a monkey's,
and just calmly looking, perceiving the other person without referring
to him at all. They rested on Brangwen. The latter marvelled at the old
face turned round on him, looking at him without considering it
necessary to know him at all. The eyebrows of the round, perceiving,
but unconcerned eyes were rather high up, with slight wrinkles above
them, just as a monkey's had. It was an old, ageless face.
The man was most amazingly a gentleman all the time, an aristocrat.
Brangwen stared fascinated. The girl was pushing her crumbs about on
the cloth, uneasily, flushed and angry.

As Brangwen sat motionless in the hall afterwards, too much moved
and lost to know what to do, the little stranger came up to him with a
beautiful