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Gudrun flushed deeply.

“Congratulate him on what?” she asked.

“There was some mention of an engagement—at least, he said something to me about it.”

Gudrun flushed darkly.

“You mean with Ursula?” she said, in challenge.

“Yes. That is so, isn’t it?”

“I don’t think there’s any engagement,” said Gudrun, coldly.

“That so? Still no developments, Rupert?” he called.

“Where? Matrimonial? No.”

“How’s that?” called Gudrun.

Birkin glanced quickly round. There was irritation in his eyes also.

“Why?” he replied. “What do you think of it, Gudrun?”

“Oh,” she cried, determined to fling her stone also into the pool, since they had begun, “I don’t think she wants an engagement. Naturally, she’s a bird that prefers the bush.” Gudrun’s voice was clear and gong-like. It reminded Rupert of her father’s, so strong and vibrant.

“And I,” said Birkin, his face playful but yet determined, “I want a binding contract, and am not keen on love, particularly free love.”

They were both amused. Why this public avowal? Gerald seemed suspended a moment, in amusement.

“Love isn’t good enough for you?”1 he called.

“No!” shouted Birkin.

“Ha, well that’s being over-refined,” said Gerald, and the car ran through the mud.

“What’s the matter really?” said Gerald, turning to Gudrun.

This was an assumption of a sort of intimacy that irritated Gudrun almost like an affront. It seemed to her that Gerald was deliberately insulting her, and infringing on the decent privacy of them all.

“What is it?” she said, in her high, repellant voice. “Don’t ask me!—I know nothing about ultimate marriage, I assure you: or even penultimate.”

“Only the ordinary unwarrantable brand!” replied Gerald. “Just so—same here. I am no expert on marriage, and degrees of ultimate-ness. It seems to be a bee that buzzes loudly in Rupert’s bonnet.”

“Exactly! But that is his trouble, exactly! Instead of wanting a woman for herself, he wants his ideas fulfilled. Which, when it comes to actual practice, is not good enough.”

“Oh, no. Best go slap for what’s womanly in woman, like a bull at a gate.” Then he seemed to glimmer in himself. “You think love is the ticket, do you?” he asked.

“Certainly, while it lasts—you only can’t insist on permanency,” came Gudrun’s voice, strident above the noise.

“Marriage or no marriage, ultimate or penultimate or just so-so?—take the love as you find it.”

“As you please, or as you don’t please,” she echoed. “Marriage is a social arrangement, I take it, and has nothing to do with the question of love.”

His eyes were flickering on her all the time. She felt as if he were kissing her freely and malevolently. It made the colour burn in her cheeks, but her heart was quite firm and unfailing.

“You think Rupert is off his head a bit?” Gerald asked.

Her eyes flashed with acknowledgment.

“As regards a woman, yes,” she said, “I do. There is such a thing as two people being in love for the whole of their lives—perhaps. But marriage is neither here nor there, even then. If they are in love, well and good. If not—why break eggs about it!”

“Yes,” said Gerald. “That’s how it strikes me. But what about Rupert?”

“I can’t make out—neither can he nor anybody. He seems to think that if you marry you can get through marriage into a third heaven, or something—all very vague.”

“Very! And who wants a third heaven? As a matter of fact, Rupert has a great yearning to be safe-to tie himself to the mast.”cb

“Yes. It seems to me he’s mistaken there too,” said Gudrun. “I’m sure a mistress is more likely to be faithful than a wife—just because she is her own mistress. No—he says he believes that a man and wife can go further than any other two beings—but where, is not explained. They can know each other, heavenly and hellish, but particularly hellish, so perfectly that they go beyond heaven and hell—into—there it all breaks down—into nowhere.”

“Into Paradise, he says,” laughed Gerald.

Gudrun shrugged her shoulders. “Je m’en fiche of your Paradise!” she said.

“Not being a Mohammedan,”cc said Gerald. Birkin sat motionless, driving