‘I can’t see what you will leave me at all, to be interested in,’ came Gerald’s voice from the lower room. ‘Neither the Pussums, nor the mines, nor anything else.’

‘You be interested in what you can, Gerald. Only I’m not interested myself,’ said Birkin.

‘What am I to do at all, then?’ came Gerald’s voice.

‘What you like. What am I to do myself?’

In the silence Birkin could feel Gerald musing this fact.

‘I’m blest if I know,’ came the good–humoured answer.

‘You see,’ said Birkin, ‘part of you wants the Pussum, and nothing but the Pussum, part of you wants the mines, the business, and nothing but the business—and there you are—all in bits—’

‘And part of me wants something else,’ said Gerald, in a queer, quiet, real voice.

‘What?’ said Birkin, rather surprised.

‘That’s what I hoped you could tell me,’ said Gerald.

There was a silence for some time.

‘I can’t tell you—I can’t find my own way, let alone yours. You might marry,’ Birkin replied.

‘Who—the Pussum?’ asked Gerald.

‘Perhaps,’ said Birkin. And he rose and went to the window.

‘That is your panacea,’ said Gerald. ‘But you haven’t even tried it on yourself yet, and you are sick enough.’

‘I am,’ said Birkin. ‘Still, I shall come right.’

‘Through marriage?’

‘Yes,’ Birkin answered obstinately.

‘And no,’ added Gerald. ‘No, no, no, my boy.’

There was a silence between them, and a strange tension of hostility. They always kept a gap, a distance between them, they wanted always to be free each of the other. Yet there was a curious heart–straining towards each other.

‘Salvator femininus,’ said Gerald, satirically.

‘Why not?’ said Birkin.

‘No reason at all,’ said Gerald, ‘if it really works. But whom will you marry?’

‘A woman,’ said Birkin.

‘Good,’ said Gerald.

Birkin and Gerald were the last to come down to breakfast. Hermione liked everybody to be early. She suffered when she felt her day was diminished, she felt she had missed her life. She seemed to grip the hours by the throat, to force her life from them. She was rather pale and ghastly, as if left behind, in the morning. Yet she had her power, her will was strangely pervasive. With the entrance of the two young men a sudden tension was felt.

She lifted her face, and said, in her amused sing–song:

‘Good morning! Did you sleep well? I’m so glad.’

And she turned away, ignoring them. Birkin, who knew her well, saw that she intended to discount his existence.

‘Will you take what you want from the sideboard?’ said Alexander, in a voice slightly suggesting disapprobation. ‘I hope the things aren’t cold. Oh no! Do you mind putting out the flame under the chafingdish, Rupert? Thank you.’