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’No! Have you?’
’I’ve been in India, and South Africa, and Egypt.’
’Why shouldn’t we go to South Africa?’
’We might!’ he said slowly.
’Or don’t you want to?’ she asked.
’I don’t care. I don’t much care what I do.’
’Doesn’t it make you happy? Why not? We shan’t be poor.
I have about six hundred a year, I wrote and asked. It’s not
much, but it’s enough, isn’t it?’
’It’s riches to me.’
’Oh, how lovely it will be!’
’But I ought to get divorced, and so ought you, unless
we’re going to have complications.’
There was plenty to think about.
Another day she asked him about himself. They were in
the hut, and there was a thunderstorm.
’And weren’t you happy, when you were a lieutenant and
an officer and a gentleman?’
’Happy? All right. I liked my Colonel.’
’Did you love him?’
’Yes! I loved him.’
’And did he love you?’
’Yes! In a way, he loved me.’
’Tell me about him.’
’What is there to tell? He had risen from the ranks. He
loved the army. And he had never married. He was twen-
ty years older than me. He was a very intelligent man: and
alone in the army, as such a man is: a passionate man in his
way: and a very clever officer. I lived under his spell while

1 Lady Chatterly’s Lover