Women in Love

Yet her voice had the same defensive brightness as she spoke to

Birkin's landlady at the door.

'Good evening! Is Mr Birkin in? Can I see him?' 'Yes, he's in. He's in his study.' Ursula slipped past the woman. His door opened. He had heard her voice.

'Hello!' he exclaimed in surprise, seeing her standing there with the

valise in her hand, and marks of tears on her face. She was one who

wept without showing many traces, like a child.

'Do I look a sight?' she said, shrinking.

'No--why? Come in,' he took the bag from her hand and they went into

the study.

There--immediately, her lips began to tremble like those of a child

that remembers again, and the tears came rushing up.

'What's the matter?' he asked, taking her in his arms. She sobbed

violently on his shoulder, whilst he held her still, waiting.

'What's the matter?' he said again, when she was quieter. But she only

pressed her face further into his shoulder, in pain, like a child that

cannot tell.

'What is it, then?' he asked. Suddenly she broke away, wiped her eyes,

regained her composure, and went and sat in a chair.

'Father hit me,' she announced, sitting bunched up, rather like a

ruffled bird, her eyes very bright.

'What for?' he said.

She looked away, and would not answer. There was a pitiful redness

about her sensitive nostrils, and her quivering lips.

'Why?' he repeated, in his strange, soft, penetrating voice.

She looked round at him, rather defiantly.

'Because I said I was going to be married tomorrow, and he bullied me.' 'Why did he bully you?' Her mouth dropped again, she remembered the scene once more, the tears

came up.

'Because I said he didn't care--and he doesn't, it's only his

domineeringness that's hurt--' she said, her mouth pulled awry by her

weeping, all the time she spoke, so that he almost smiled, it seemed so

childish. Yet it was not childish, it was a mortal conflict, a deep

wound.

'It isn't quite true,' he said. 'And even so, you shouldn't SAY it.' 'It IS true--it IS true,' she wept, 'and I won't be bullied by his

pretending it's love--when it ISN'T--he doesn't care, how can he--no,

he can't-' He sat in silence. She moved him beyond himself.

'Then you shouldn't rouse him, if he can't,' replied Birkin quietly.

'And I HAVE loved him, I have,' she wept. 'I've loved him always, and

he's always done this to me, he has--' 'It's been a love of opposition, then,' he said. 'Never mind--it will

be all right. It's nothing desperate.' 'Yes,' she wept, 'it is, it is.' 'Why?' 'I shall never see him again--' 'Not immediately. Don't cry, you had to break with him, it had to

be--don't cry.' He went over to her and kissed her fine, fragile hair, touching her wet

cheeks gently.