said Birkin to her.

‘Anything but the earth itself,’ she laughed, watching his live hands that hovered to attend to the light.

‘I’m dying to see what my second one is,’ cried Gudrun, in a vibrating rather strident voice, that seemed to repel the others from her.

Birkin went and kindled it. It was of a lovely deep blue colour, with a red floor, and a great white cuttle-fish flowing in white soft streams all over it. The cuttle-fish had a face that stared straight from the heart of the light, very fixed and coldly intent.

‘How truly terrifying!’ exclaimed Gudrun, in a voice of horror. Gerald, at her side, gave a low laugh.

‘But isn’t it really fearful!’