Women in Love

He set off down the bank, and she went unwillingly with him. Yet she

would not have stayed away, either.

'We know each other well, you and I, already,' he said. She did not

answer.

In the large darkish kitchen of the mill, the labourer's wife was

talking shrilly to Hermione and Gerald, who stood, he in white and she

in a glistening bluish foulard, strangely luminous in the dusk of the

room; whilst from the cages on the walls, a dozen or more canaries sang

at the top of their voices. The cages were all placed round a small

square window at the back, where the sunshine came in, a beautiful

beam, filtering through green leaves of a tree. The voice of Mrs Salmon

shrilled against the noise of the birds, which rose ever more wild and

triumphant, and the woman's voice went up and up against them, and the

birds replied with wild animation.

'Here's Rupert!' shouted Gerald in the midst of the din. He was

suffering badly, being very sensitive in the ear.

'O-o-h them birds, they won't let you speak--!' shrilled the labourer's

wife in disgust. 'I'll cover them up.' And she darted here and there, throwing a duster, an apron, a towel, a

table-cloth over the cages of the birds.

'Now will you stop it, and let a body speak for your row,' she said,

still in a voice that was too high.

The party watched her. Soon the cages were covered, they had a strange

funereal look. But from under the towels odd defiant trills and

bubblings still shook out.

'Oh, they won't go on,' said Mrs Salmon reassuringly. 'They'll go to

sleep now.' 'Really,' said Hermione, politely.

'They will,' said Gerald. 'They will go to sleep automatically, now the

impression of evening is produced.' 'Are they so easily deceived?' cried Ursula.

'Oh, yes,' replied Gerald. 'Don't you know the story of Fabre, who,

when he was a boy, put a hen's head under her wing, and she straight

away went to sleep? It's quite true.' 'And did that make him a naturalist?' asked Birkin.

'Probably,' said Gerald.

Meanwhile Ursula was peeping under one of the cloths. There sat the

canary in a corner, bunched and fluffed up for sleep.

'How ridiculous!' she cried. 'It really thinks the night has come! How

absurd! Really, how can one have any respect for a creature that is so

easily taken in!' 'Yes,' sang Hermione, coming also to look. She put her hand on Ursula's

arm and chuckled a low laugh. 'Yes, doesn't he look comical?' she

chuckled. 'Like a stupid husband.' Then, with her hand still on Ursula's arm, she drew her away, saying,

in her mild sing-song: 'How did you come here? We saw Gudrun too.' 'I came to look at the pond,' said Ursula, 'and I found Mr Birkin

there.' 'Did you? This is quite a Brangwen land, isn't it!' 'I'm afraid I hoped so,' said Ursula. 'I ran here for refuge, when I

saw you down the lake, just putting off.' 'Did you! And now we've run you to earth.' Hermione's eyelids lifted with an uncanny movement, amused but

overwrought. She had always her strange, rapt look, unnatural and

irresponsible.