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wildered.
‘I know,’ he said, ‘she’ll please herself—she always has
done. I’ve done my best for them, but that doesn’t matter.
They’ve got themselves to please, and if they can help it
they’ll please nobody BUT themselves. But she’s a right to
consider her mother, and me as well—‘
Brangwen was thinking his own thoughts.
‘And I tell you this much, I would rather bury them, than
see them getting into a lot of loose ways such as you see ev-
erywhere nowadays. I’d rather bury them—‘
‘Yes but, you see,’ said Birkin slowly, rather wearily, bored
again by this new turn, ‘they won’t give either you or me the
chance to bury them, because they’re not to be buried.’
Brangwen looked at him in a sudden flare of impotent
anger.
‘Now, Mr Birkin,’ he said, ‘I don’t know what you’ve come
here for, and I don’t know what you’re asking for. But my
daughters are my daughters—and it’s my business to look
after them while I can.’
Birkin’s brows knitted suddenly, his eyes concentrated in
mockery. But he remained perfectly stiff and still. There was
a pause.
‘I’ve nothing against your marrying Ursula,’ Brangwen
began at length. ‘It’s got nothing to do with me, she’ll do as
she likes, me or no me.’
Birkin turned away, looking out of the window and let-
ting go his consciousness. After all, what good was this? It
was hopeless to keep it up. He would sit on till Ursula came
home, then speak to her, then go away. He would not accept

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