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‘Are they?’ Brangwen caught himself up. ‘I’m not speak-
ing of you in particular,’ he said. ‘What I mean is that my
children have been brought up to think and do according to
the religion I was brought up in myself, and I don’t want to
see them going away from THAT.’
There was a dangerous pause.
‘And beyond that—?’ asked Birkin.
The father hesitated, he was in a nasty position.
‘Eh? What do you mean? All I want to say is that my
daughter’—he tailed off into silence, overcome by futility.
He knew that in some way he was off the track.
‘Of course,’ said Birkin, ‘I don’t want to hurt anybody or
influence anybody. Ursula does exactly as she pleases.’
There was a complete silence, because of the utter fail-
ure in mutual understanding. Birkin felt bored. Her father
was not a coherent human being, he was a roomful of old
echoes. The eyes of the younger man rested on the face of
the elder. Brangwen looked up, and saw Birkin looking at
him. His face was covered with inarticulate anger and hu-
miliation and sense of inferiority in strength.
‘And as for beliefs, that’s one thing,’ he said. ‘But I’d rath-
er see my daughters dead tomorrow than that they should
be at the beck and call of the first man that likes to come and
whistle for them.’
A queer painful light came into Birkin’s eyes.
‘As to that,’ he said, ‘I only know that it’s much more like-
ly that it’s I who am at the beck and call of the woman, than
she at mine.’
Again there was a pause. The father was somewhat be-

380 Women in Love