'Why are they so lovely,' she cried. 'Why do I think them so lovely?' 'They are nice flowers,' he said, her emotional tones putting a
constraint on him.
'You know that a daisy is a company of florets, a concourse, become
individual. Don't the botanists put it highest in the line of
development? I believe they do.' 'The compositae, yes, I think so,' said Ursula, who was never very sure
of anything. Things she knew perfectly well, at one moment, seemed to
become doubtful the next.
'Explain it so, then,' he said. 'The daisy is a perfect little
democracy, so it's the highest of flowers, hence its charm.' 'No,' she cried, 'no--never. It isn't democratic.' 'No,' he admitted. 'It's the golden mob of the proletariat, surrounded
by a showy white fence of the idle rich.' 'How hateful--your hateful social orders!' she cried.
'Quite! It's a daisy--we'll leave it alone.' 'Do. Let it be a dark horse for once,' she said: 'if anything can be a
dark horse to you,' she added satirically.
They stood aside, forgetful. As if a little stunned, they both were
motionless, barely conscious. The little conflict into which they had
fallen had torn their consciousness and left them like two impersonal
forces, there in contact.
He became aware of the lapse. He wanted to say something, to get on to
a new more ordinary footing.
'You know,' he said, 'that I am having rooms here at the mill? Don't
you think we can have some good times?' 'Oh are you?' she said, ignoring all his implication of admitted
intimacy.
He adjusted himself at once, became normally distant.
'If I find I can live sufficiently by myself,' he continued, 'I shall
give up my work altogether. It has become dead to me. I don't believe
in the humanity I pretend to be part of, I don't care a straw for the
social ideals I live by, I hate the dying organic form of social
mankind--so it can't be anything but trumpery, to work at education. I
shall drop it as soon as I am clear enough--tomorrow perhaps--and be by
myself.' 'Have you enough to live on?' asked Ursula.
'Yes--I've about four hundred a year. That makes it easy for me.' There was a pause.
'And what about Hermione?' asked Ursula.
'That's over, finally--a pure failure, and never could have been
anything else.' 'But you still know each other?' 'We could hardly pretend to be strangers, could we?' There was a stubborn pause.