‘Did you?’ she cried, with her vague radiance. He might have been saying anything whatsoever. She seemed pleased.

‘Yes,’ he answered. ‘I wanted to—I wanted you to agree to marry me.’

She looked at him. His eyes were flickering with mixed lights, wanting something of her, yet not wanting it. She shrank a little, as if she were exposed to his eyes, and as if it were a pain to her. She darkened, her soul clouded over, she turned aside. She had been driven out of her own radiant, single world. And she dreaded contact, it was almost unnatural to her at these times.

‘Yes,’ she said vaguely, in a doubting, absent voice.

Birkin’s heart contracted swiftly, in a sudden fire of bitterness. It all meant nothing to her. He had been mistaken again. She was in some self–satisfied world of her own. He and his hopes were accidentals, violations to her. It drove her father to a pitch of mad exasperation. He had had to put up with this all his life, from her.

‘Well, what do you say?’ he cried.

She winced. Then she glanced down at her father, half–frightened, and she said:

‘I didn’t speak, did I?’ as if she were afraid she might have committed herself.

‘No,’ said her father, exasperated. ‘But you needn’t look like an idiot. You’ve got your wits, haven’t you?’

She ebbed away in silent hostility.

‘I’ve got my wits, what does that mean?’ she repeated, in a sullen voice of antagonism.

‘You heard what was asked you, didn’t you?’ cried her father in anger.

‘Of course I heard.’

‘Well then, can’t you answer?’ thundered her father.

‘Why should I?’

At the impertinence of this retort, he went stiff. But he said nothing.

‘No,’ said Birkin, to help out the occasion, ‘there’s no need to answer at once. You can say when you like.’

Her eyes flashed with a powerful light.

‘Why should I say anything?’ she cried. ‘You do this off your OWN bat, it has nothing to do with me. Why do you both want to bully me?’

‘Bully you! Bully you!’ cried her father, in bitter, rancorous anger. ‘Bully you! Why, it’s a pity you can’t be bullied into some sense and decency. Bully you! YOU’LL see to that, you self–willed creature.’

She stood suspended in the middle of the room, her face glimmering and dangerous. She was set in satisfied defiance. Birkin looked up at her. He too was angry.

‘But none is bullying you,’ he said, in a very soft dangerous voice also.

‘Oh yes,’ she cried. ‘You both want to force me into something.’

‘That is an illusion of yours,’ he said ironically.

‘Illusion!’ cried her father. ‘A self–opinionated fool, that’s what she is.’

Birkin rose, saying:

‘However, we’ll leave it for the time being.’