‘Money?’ said Birkin. ‘She’ll get what she wants from Halliday or from one of her acquaintances.’

‘But then,’ said Gerald, ‘I’d rather give her her dues and settle the account.’

‘She doesn’t care.’

‘No, perhaps not. But one feels the account is left open, and one would rather it were closed.’

‘Would you?’ said Birkin. He was looking at the white legs of Gerald, as the latter sat on the side of the bed in his shirt. They were white–skinned, full, muscular legs, handsome and decided. Yet they moved Birkin with a sort of pathos, tenderness, as if they were childish.

‘I think I’d rather close the account,’ said Gerald, repeating himself vaguely.

‘It doesn’t matter one way or another,’ said Birkin.

‘You always say it doesn’t matter,’ said Gerald, a little puzzled, looking down at the face of the other man affectionately.

‘Neither does it,’ said Birkin.

‘But she was a decent sort, really—’

‘Render unto Caesarina the things that are Caesarina’s,’ said Birkin, turning aside. It seemed to him Gerald was talking for the sake of talking. ‘Go away, it wearies me—it’s too late at night,’ he said.

‘I wish you’d tell me something that DID matter,’ said Gerald, looking down all the time at the face of the other man, waiting for something. But Birkin turned his face aside.

‘All right then, go to sleep,’ said Gerald, and he laid his hand affectionately on the other man’s shoulder, and went away.

In the morning when Gerald awoke and heard Birkin move, he called out: ‘I still think I ought to give the Pussum ten pounds.’

‘Oh God!’ said Birkin, ‘don’t be so matter–of–fact. Close the account in your own soul, if you like. It is there you can’t close it.’

‘How do you know I can’t?’

‘Knowing you.’

Gerald meditated for some moments.

‘It seems to me the right thing to do, you know, with the Pussums, is to pay them.’

‘And the right thing for mistresses: keep them. And the right thing for wives: live under the same roof with them. Integer vitae scelerisque purus—’ said Birkin.

‘There’s no need to be nasty about it,’ said Gerald.

‘It bores me. I’m not interested in your peccadilloes.’

‘And I don’t care whether you are or not—I am.’

The morning was again sunny. The maid had been in and brought the water, and had drawn the curtains. Birkin, sitting up in bed, looked lazily and pleasantly out on the park, that was so green and deserted, romantic, belonging to the past. He was thinking how lovely, how sure, how formed, how final all the things of the past were—the lovely accomplished past—this house, so still and golden, the park slumbering its centuries of peace. And then, what a snare and a delusion, this beauty of static things—what a horrible, dead prison Breadalby really was, what an intolerable confinement, the peace! Yet it was better than the sordid scrambling conflict of the present. If only one might create the future after one’s own heart—for a little pure truth, a little unflinching application of simple truth to life, the heart cried out ceaselessly.