Page 557 - women-in-love

enough for me.’
‘Quite enough,’ said Gudrun.
‘The little grey home in the west,’ quoted Ursula ironi-
cally.
‘Doesn’t it sound grey, too,’ said Gudrun grimly.
They were interrupted by the sound of the car. There was
Birkin. Ursula was surprised that she felt so lit up, that she
became suddenly so free from the problems of grey homes
in the west.
They heard his heels click on the hall pavement below.
‘Hello!’ he called, his voice echoing alive through the
house. Ursula smiled to herself. HE was frightened of the
place too.
‘Hello! Here we are,’ she called downstairs. And they
heard him quickly running up.
‘This is a ghostly situation,’ he said.
‘These houses don’t have ghosts—they’ve never had any
personality, and only a place with personality can have a
ghost,’ said Gudrun.
‘I suppose so. Are you both weeping over the past?’
‘We are,’ said Gudrun, grimly.
Ursula laughed.
‘Not weeping that it’s gone, but weeping that it ever
WAS,’ she said.
‘Oh,’ he replied, relieved.
He sat down for a moment. There was something in his
presence, Ursula thought, lambent and alive. It made even
the impertinent structure of this null house disappear.
‘Gudrun says she could not bear to be married and put

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