‘You see,’ said Ursula, her face luminous and pleased. ‘WE are just going to get married, and we thought we’d buy things. Then we decided, just now, that we wouldn’t have furniture, we’d go abroad.’

The full–built, slightly blowsy city girl looked at the fine face of the other woman, with appreciation. They appreciated each other. The youth stood aside, his face expressionless and timeless, the thin line of the black moustache drawn strangely suggestive over his rather wide, closed mouth. He was impassive, abstract, like some dark suggestive presence, a gutter–presence.

‘It’s all right to be some folks,’ said the city girl, turning to her own young man. He did not look at her, but he smiled with the lower part of his face, putting his head aside in an odd gesture of assent. His eyes were unchanging, glazed with darkness.

‘Cawsts something to change your mind,’ he said, in an incredibly low accent.

‘Only ten shillings this time,’ said Birkin.

The man looked up at him with a grimace of a smile, furtive, unsure.

‘Cheap at ‘arf a quid, guvnor,’ he said. ‘Not like getting divawced.’

‘We’re not married yet,’ said Birkin.

‘No, no more aren’t we,’ said the young woman loudly. ‘But we shall be, a Saturday.’

Again she looked at the young man with a determined, protective look, at once overbearing and very gentle. He grinned sicklily, turning away his head. She had got his manhood, but Lord, what did he care! He had a strange furtive pride and slinking singleness.

‘Good luck to you,’ said Birkin.

‘Same to you,’ said the young woman. Then, rather tentatively: ‘When’s yours coming off, then?’

Birkin looked round at Ursula.

‘It’s for the lady to say,’ he replied. ‘We go to the registrar the moment she’s ready.’

Ursula laughed, covered with confusion and bewilderment.

‘No ‘urry,’ said the young man, grinning suggestive.

‘Oh, don’t break your neck to get there,’ said the young woman. ‘‘Slike when you’re dead—you’re long time married.’

The young man turned aside as if this hit him.

‘The longer the better, let us hope,’ said Birkin.

‘That’s it, guvnor,’ said the young man admiringly. ‘Enjoy it while it larsts—niver whip a dead donkey.’

‘Only when he’s shamming dead,’ said the young woman, looking at her young man with caressive tenderness of authority.

‘Aw, there’s a difference,’ he said satirically.

‘What about the chair?’ said Birkin.

‘Yes, all right,’ said the woman.

They trailed off to the dealer, the handsome but abject young fellow hanging a little aside.

‘That’s it,’ said Birkin. ‘Will you take it with you, or have the address altered.’