Page 264 - lady-chatterlys-lover

’Quite! No more black horse to thrash and maltreat. Pla-
to never thought we’d go one better than his black steed and
his white steed, and have no steeds at all, only an engine!’
’Only an engine and gas!’ said Clifford.
’I hope I can have some repairs done to the old place next
year. I think I shall have about a thousand to spare for that:
but work costs so much!’ he added.
’Oh, good!’ said Connie. ‘If only there aren’t more
strikes!’
’What would be the use of their striking again! Merely
ruin the industry, what’s left of it: and surely the owls are
beginning to see it!’
’Perhaps they don’t mind ruining the industry,’ said Con-
nie.
’Ah, don’t talk like a woman! The industry fills their bel-
lies, even if it can’t keep their pockets quite so flush,’ he
said, using turns of speech that oddly had a twang of Mrs
Bolton.
’But didn’t you say the other day that you were a conser-
vative-anarchist,’ she asked innocently.
’And did you understand what I meant?’ he retorted. ‘All
I meant is, people can be what they like and feel what they
like and do what they like, strictly privately, so long as they
keep the FORM of life intact, and the apparatus.’
Connie walked on in silence a few paces. Then she said,
obstinately:
’It sounds like saying an egg may go as addled as it likes,
so long as it keeps its shell on whole. But addled eggs do
break of themselves.’