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panionship that matters. It’s the living together from day to
day, not the sleeping together once or twice. You and I are
married, no matter what happens to us. We have the habit
of each other. And habit, to my thinking, is more vital than
any occasional excitement. The long, slow, enduring thing...
that’s what we live by...not the occasional spasm of any sort.
Little by little, living together, two people fall into a sort of
unison, they vibrate so intricately to one another. That’s the
real secret of marriage, not sex; at least not the simple func-
tion of sex. You and I are interwoven in a marriage. If we
stick to that we ought to be able to arrange this sex thing,
as we arrange going to the dentist; since fate has given us a
checkmate physically there.’
Connie sat and listened in a sort of wonder, and a sort of
fear. She did not know if he was right or not. There was Mi-
chaelis, whom she loved; so she said to herself. But her love
was somehow only an excursion from her marriage with
Clifford; the long, slow habit of intimacy, formed through
years of suffering and patience. Perhaps the human soul
needs excursions, and must not be denied them. But the
point of an excursion is that you come home again.
’And wouldn’t you mind WHAT man’s child I had?’ she
asked.
’Why, Connie, I should trust your natural instinct of de-
cency and selection. You just wouldn’t let the wrong sort of
fellow touch you.’
She thought of Michaelis! He was absolutely Clifford’s
idea of the wrong sort of fellow.
’But men and women may have different feelings about

Lady Chatterly’s Lover