He looked at her in wonder.

‘The life of the body,’ he said, ‘is just the life of the animals.’

‘And that’s better than the life of professional corpses. But it’s not true! the human body is only just coming to real life. With the Greeks it gave a lovely flicker, then Plato and Aristotle killed it, and Jesus finished it off. But now the body is coming really to life, it is really rising from the tomb. And It will be a lovely, lovely life in the lovely universe, the life of the human body.’

‘My dear, you speak as if you were ushering it all in! True, you am going away on a holiday: but don’t please be quite so indecently elated about it. Believe me, whatever God there is is slowly eliminating the guts and alimentary system from the human being, to evolve a higher, more spiritual being.’

‘Why should I believe you, Clifford, when I feel that whatever God there is has at last wakened up in my guts, as you call them, and is rippling so happily there, like dawn. Why should I believe you, when I feel so very much the contrary?’

‘Oh, exactly! And what has caused this extraordinary change in you? running out stark naked in the rain, and playing Bacchante? desire for sensation, or the anticipation of going to Venice?’

‘Both! Do you think it is horrid of me to be so thrilled at going off?’ she said.

‘Rather horrid to show it so plainly.’

‘Then I’ll hide it.’

‘Oh, don’t trouble! You almost communicate a thrill to me. I almost feel that it is I who am going off.’

‘Well, why don’t you come?’

‘We’ve gone over all that. And as a matter of fact, I suppose your greatest thrill comes from being able to say a temporary farewell to all this. Nothing so thrilling, for the moment, as Good–bye–to–all!—But every parting means a meeting elsewhere. And every meeting is a new bondage.’

‘I’m not going to enter any new bondages.’

‘Don’t boast, while the gods are listening,’ he said.

She pulled up short.

‘No! I won’t boast!’ she said.

But she was thrilled, none the less, to be going off: to feel bonds snap. She couldn’t help it.

Clifford, who couldn’t sleep, gambled all night with Mrs Bolton, till she was too sleepy almost to live.

And the day came round for Hilda to arrive. Connie had arranged with Mellors that if everything promised well for their night together, she would hang a green shawl out of the window. If there were frustration, a red one.

Mrs Bolton helped Connie to pack.

‘It will be so good for your Ladyship to have a change.’

‘I think it will. You don’t mind having Sir Clifford on your hands alone for a time, do you?’

‘Oh no! I can manage him quite all right. I mean, I can do all he needs me to do. Don’t you think he’s better than he used to be?’