'How perfectly loathsome!' exclaimed Halliday.

'I don't know,' replied Gerald, looking round the table. 'Do
black-beetles bite? But that isn't the point. Are you afraid of their
biting, or is it a metaphysical antipathy?'

The girl was looking full upon him all the time with inchoate eyes.

'Oh, I think they're beastly, they're horrid,' she cried. 'If I see
one, it gives me the creeps all over. If one were to crawl on me, I'm
SURE I should die--I'm sure I should.'

'I hope not,' whispered the young Russian.

'I'm sure I should, Maxim,' she asseverated.

'Then one won't crawl on you,' said Gerald, smiling and knowing. In
some strange way he understood her.

'It's metaphysical, as Gerald says,' Birkin stated.

There was a little pause of uneasiness.

'And are you afraid of nothing else, Pussum?' asked the young Russian,
in his quick, hushed, elegant manner.

'Not weally,' she said. 'I am afwaid of some things, but not weally the
same. I'm not afwaid of BLOOD.'