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‘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 win-
dow.
‘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 ten-
sion 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 break-
fast. 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

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