he made a gesture, dashing his hand aside, as if to dash away something troublesome — ’it is unimportant, unimportant. Does it matter, whether I drink white wine this evening, or whether I drink nothing? IT DOES NOT MATTER, it does not matter. So this love, this amour, this BAISER. Yes or no, soit ou soit pas, today, tomorrow, or never, it is all the same, it does not matter — no more than the white wine.’

He ended with an odd dropping of the head in a desperate negation. Gudrun watched him steadily. She had gone pale.

Suddenly she stretched over and seized his hand in her own.

‘That is true,’ she said, in rather a high, vehement voice, ‘that is true for me too. It is the understanding that matters.’