‘Do you know,’ he said suddenly, ‘I went and proposed to Ursula Brangwen tonight, that she should marry me.’

He saw the blank shining wonder come over Gerald’s face.

‘You did?’

‘Yes. Almost formally—speaking first to her father, as it should be, in the world—though that was accident—or mischief.’

Gerald only stared in wonder, as if he did not grasp.

‘You don’t mean to say that you seriously went and asked her father to let you marry her?’

‘Yes,’ said Birkin, ‘I did.’

‘What, had you spoken to her before about it, then?’

‘No, not a word. I suddenly thought I would go there and ask her—and her father happened to come instead of her—so I asked him first.’

‘If you could have her?’ concluded Gerald.

‘Ye–es, that.’

‘And you didn’t speak to her?’

‘Yes. She came in afterwards. So it was put to her as well.’

‘It was! And what did she say then? You’re an engaged man?’

‘No,—she only said she didn’t want to be bullied into answering.’

‘She what?’

‘Said she didn’t want to be bullied into answering.’

‘“Said she didn’t want to be bullied into answering!” Why, what did she mean by that?’

Birkin raised his shoulders. ‘Can’t say,’ he answered. ‘Didn’t want to be bothered just then, I suppose.’

‘But is this really so? And what did you do then?’

‘I walked out of the house and came here.’

‘You came straight here?’

‘Yes.’

Gerald stared in amazement and amusement. He could not take it in.

‘But is this really true, as you say it now?’

‘Word for word.’

‘It is?’

He leaned back in his chair, filled with delight and amusement.

‘Well, that’s good,’ he said. ‘And so you came here to wrestle with your good angel, did you?’

‘Did I?’ said Birkin.

‘Well, it looks like it. Isn’t that what you did?’

Now Birkin could not follow Gerald’s meaning.

‘And what’s going to happen?’ said Gerald. ‘You’re going to keep open the proposition, so to speak?’

‘I suppose so. I vowed to myself I would see them all to the devil. But I suppose I shall ask her again, in a little while.’

Gerald watched him steadily.

‘So you’re fond of her then?’ he asked.

‘I think—I love her,’ said Birkin, his face going very still and fixed.

Gerald glistened for a moment with pleasure, as if it were something done specially to please him. Then his face assumed a fitting gravity, and he nodded his head slowly.

‘You know,’ he said, ‘I always believed in love—true love. But where does one find it nowadays?’