“But Clifford, you make eternity sound like a lid or a long, long chain that trailed after one, no matter how far one went.”
He looked at her, annoyed.
“What I mean,” he said, “is that if you go to Venice, you won’t go in the hopes of some love affair that you can take au grand sérieux , will you?”
“A love affair in Venice au grand sérieux ? No, I assure you! No, I’d never take a love affair in Venice more than au très petit sérieux .”
She spoke with a queer kind of contempt. He knitted his brows, looking at her.
Coming downstairs in the morning, she found the keeper’s dog Flossie sitting in the corridor outside Clifford’s room, and whimpering very faintly.
“Why Flossie!” she said softly, “What are you doing here?”
And she quietly opened Clifford’s door. Clifford was sitting up in bed, with the bed-table and typewriter pushed aside, and the keeper was standing attention at the foot of the bed. Flossie ran in. With a faint gesture of head and eyes, Mellors ordered her to the door again, and she slunk out.
“Oh, good morning Clifford!” Connie said. “I didn’t know you were busy.” Then she looked at the keeper, saying good morning to him. He murmured his reply, looking at her as if vaguely. But she felt a whiff of passion touch her, from his mere presence.
“Did I interrupt you, Clifford? I’m sorry.”
“No, it’s nothing of any importance.”