Page 361 - lady-chatterlys-lover

saw his smallish, sensitive, loose hand on the table. He was
no simple working man, not he: he was acting! acting!
’Still!’ she said, as she took a little cheese. ‘It would be
more natural if you spoke to us in normal English, not in
vernacular.’
He looked at her, feeling her devil of a will.
’Would it?’ he said in the normal English. ‘Would it?
Would anything that was said between you and me be quite
natural, unless you said you wished me to hell before your
sister ever saw me again: and unless I said something al-
most as unpleasant back again? Would anything else be
natural?’
’Oh yes!’ said Hilda. ‘Just good manners would be quite
natural.’
’Second nature, so to speak!’ he said: then he began to
laugh. ‘Nay,’ he said. ‘I’m weary o’ manners. Let me be!’
Hilda was frankly baffled and furiously annoyed. After
all, he might show that he realized he was being honoured.
Instead of which, with his play-acting and lordly airs, he
seemed to think it was he who was conferring the hon-
our. Just impudence! Poor misguided Connie, in the man’s
clutches!
The three ate in silence. Hilda looked to see what his ta-
ble-manners were like. She could not help realizing that he
was instinctively much more delicate and well-bred than
herself. She had a certain Scottish clumsiness. And more-
over, he had all the quiet self-contained assurance of the
English, no loose edges. It would be very difficult to get the
better of him.

0 Lady Chatterly’s Lover