'I don't want to give you THINGS,' she said teasingly. 'But will you
have this?' 'All right,' he said, defeated, and she triumphed.
They went upstairs. There were two bedrooms to correspond with the
rooms downstairs. One of them was half furnished, and Birkin had
evidently slept there. Hermione went round the room carefully, taking
in every detail, as if absorbing the evidence of his presence, in all
the inanimate things. She felt the bed and examined the coverings.
'Are you SURE you were quite comfortable?' she said, pressing the
pillow.
'Perfectly,' he replied coldly.
'And were you warm? There is no down quilt. I am sure you need one. You
mustn't have a great pressure of clothes.' 'I've got one,' he said. 'It is coming down.' They measured the rooms, and lingered over every consideration. Ursula
stood at the window and watched the woman carrying the tea up the bank
to the pond. She hated the palaver Hermione made, she wanted to drink
tea, she wanted anything but this fuss and business.
At last they all mounted the grassy bank, to the picnic. Hermione
poured out tea. She ignored now Ursula's presence. And Ursula,
recovering from her ill-humour, turned to Gerald saying: 'Oh, I hated you so much the other day, Mr Crich,' 'What for?' said Gerald, wincing slightly away.
'For treating your horse so badly. Oh, I hated you so much!' 'What did he do?' sang Hermione.
'He made his lovely sensitive Arab horse stand with him at the
railway-crossing whilst a horrible lot of trucks went by; and the poor
thing, she was in a perfect frenzy, a perfect agony. It was the most
horrible sight you can imagine.' 'Why did you do it, Gerald?' asked Hermione, calm and interrogative.
'She must learn to stand--what use is she to me in this country, if she
shies and goes off every time an engine whistles.' 'But why inflict unnecessary torture?' said Ursula. 'Why make her stand
all that time at the crossing? You might just as well have ridden back
up the road, and saved all that horror. Her sides were bleeding where
you had spurred her. It was too horrible--!' Gerald stiffened.
'I have to use her,' he replied. 'And if I'm going to be sure of her at
ALL, she'll have to learn to stand noises.' 'Why should she?' cried Ursula in a passion. 'She is a living creature,
why should she stand anything, just because you choose to make her? She
has as much right to her own being, as you have to yours.' 'There I disagree,' said Gerald. 'I consider that mare is there for my
use. Not because I bought her, but because that is the natural order.
It is more natural for a man to take a horse and use it as he likes,
than for him to go down on his knees to it, begging it to do as it
wishes, and to fulfil its own marvellous nature.' Ursula was just breaking out, when Hermione lifted her face and began,
in her musing sing-song: 'I do think--I do really think we must have the COURAGE to use the
lower animal life for our needs. I do think there is something wrong,
when we look on every living creature as if it were ourselves. I do
feel, that it is false to project our own feelings on every animate
creature. It is a lack of discrimination, a lack of criticism.' 'Quite,' said Birkin sharply. 'Nothing is so detestable as the maudlin
attributing of human feelings and consciousness to animals.' 'Yes,' said Hermione, wearily, 'we must really take a position. Either
we are going to use the animals, or they will use us.' 'That's a fact,' said Gerald. 'A horse has got a will like a man,
though it has no MIND strictly. And if your will isn't master, then the
horse is master of you. And this is a thing I can't help. I can't help
being master of the horse.' 'If only we could learn how to use our will,' said Hermione, 'we could
do anything. The will can cure anything, and put anything right. That I
am convinced of--if only we use the will properly, intelligibly.' 'What do you mean by using the will properly?' said Birkin.