in her eating, her fingers were fine and seemed very sensitive in the
tips, so she put her food apart with fine, small motions, she ate
carefully, delicately. It pleased him very much to see her, and it
irritated Birkin. They were all drinking champagne. Maxim, the prim
young Russian with the smooth, warm-coloured face and black, oiled hair
was the only one who seemed to be perfectly calm and sober. Birkin was
white and abstract, unnatural, Gerald was smiling with a constant
bright, amused, cold light in his eyes, leaning a little protectively
towards the Pussum, who was very handsome, and soft, unfolded like some
red lotus in dreadful flowering nakedness, vainglorious now, flushed
with wine and with the excitement of men. Halliday looked foolish. One
glass of wine was enough to make him drunk and giggling. Yet there was
always a pleasant, warm naivete about him, that made him attractive.

'I'm not afwaid of anything except black-beetles,' said the Pussum,
looking up suddenly and staring with her black eyes, on which there
seemed an unseeing film of flame, fully upon Gerald. He laughed
dangerously, from the blood. Her childish speech caressed his nerves,
and her burning, filmed eyes, turned now full upon him, oblivious of
all her antecedents, gave him a sort of licence.

'I'm not,' she protested. 'I'm not afraid of other things. But
black-beetles--ugh!' she shuddered convulsively, as if the very thought
were too much to bear.

'Do you mean,' said Gerald, with the punctiliousness of a man who has
been drinking, 'that you are afraid of the sight of a black-beetle, or
you are afraid of a black-beetle biting you, or doing you some harm?'

'Do they bite?' cried the girl.