'You think there is no hope?' she asked, in her pertinent fashion.
But Birkin backed away. He would not answer such a question.
'Any hope of England's becoming real? God knows. It's a great actual
unreality now, an aggregation into unreality. It might be real, if
there were no Englishmen.' 'You think the English will have to disappear?' persisted Gudrun. It
was strange, her pointed interest in his answer. It might have been her
own fate she was inquiring after. Her dark, dilated eyes rested on
Birkin, as if she could conjure the truth of the future out of him, as
out of some instrument of divination.
He was pale. Then, reluctantly, he answered: 'Well--what else is in front of them, but disappearance? They've got to
disappear from their own special brand of Englishness, anyhow.' Gudrun watched him as if in a hypnotic state, her eyes wide and fixed
on him.
'But in what way do you mean, disappear?--' she persisted.
'Yes, do you mean a change of heart?' put in Gerald.
'I don't mean anything, why should I?' said Birkin. 'I'm an Englishman,
and I've paid the price of it. I can't talk about England--I can only
speak for myself.' 'Yes,' said Gudrun slowly, 'you love England immensely, IMMENSELY,
Rupert.' 'And leave her,' he replied.
'No, not for good. You'll come back,' said Gerald, nodding sagely.
'They say the lice crawl off a dying body,' said Birkin, with a glare
of bitterness. 'So I leave England.' 'Ah, but you'll come back,' said Gudrun, with a sardonic smile.
'Tant pis pour moi,' he replied.
'Isn't he angry with his mother country!' laughed Gerald, amused.
'Ah, a patriot!' said Gudrun, with something like a sneer.
Birkin refused to answer any more.
Gudrun watched him still for a few seconds. Then she turned away. It
was finished, her spell of divination in him. She felt already purely
cynical. She looked at Gerald. He was wonderful like a piece of radium
to her. She felt she could consume herself and know ALL, by means of
this fatal, living metal. She smiled to herself at her fancy. And what
would she do with herself, when she had destroyed herself? For if
spirit, if integral being is destructible, Matter is indestructible.
He was looking bright and abstracted, puzzled, for the moment. She
stretched out her beautiful arm, with its fluff of green tulle, and
touched his chin with her subtle, artist's fingers.
'What are they then?' she asked, with a strange, knowing smile.
'What?' he replied, his eyes suddenly dilating with wonder.