heart-straining
towards each other.

'Salvator femininus,' said Gerald, satirically.

'Why not?' said Birkin.

'No reason at all,' said Gerald, 'if it really works. But whom will you
marry?'

'A woman,' said Birkin.

'Good,' said Gerald.

Birkin and Gerald were the last to come down to breakfast. Hermione
liked everybody to be early. She suffered when she felt her day was
diminished, she felt she had missed her life. She seemed to grip the
hours by the throat, to force her life from them. She was rather pale
and ghastly, as if left behind, in the morning. Yet she had her power,
her will was strangely pervasive. With the entrance of the two young
men a sudden tension was felt.

She lifted her face, and said, in her amused sing-song:

'Good morning! Did you sleep well? I'm so glad.'

And she turned away, ignoring them. Birkin, who knew her well, saw that
she intended to discount his existence.

'Will you take what you want from the sideboard?' said Alexander, in a
voice slightly suggesting disapprobation. 'I hope the things aren't
cold. Oh no! Do you mind putting out the flame under the chafingdish,
Rupert? Thank you.'

Even Alexander was rather authoritative where Hermione was cool. He
took his tone from her, inevitably. Birkin sat down and looked at the
table. He was so used to this house, to this room, to this atmosphere,
through years of intimacy, and now he felt in complete opposition to it
all, it had nothing to do with him. How well he knew Hermione, as she
sat there, erect and silent and somewhat bemused, and yet so potent, so
powerful! He knew her statically, so finally, that it was almost like a
madness. It was difficult to believe one was not mad, that one was not
a figure in the hall of kings in some Egyptian tomb, where the dead all
sat immemorial and tremendous. How utterly he knew Joshua Mattheson,
who was talking in his harsh, yet rather mincing voice, endlessly,
endlessly, always with a strong mentality working, always interesting,
and yet always known, everything he said known beforehand, however
novel it was, and clever. Alexander the up-to-date host, so bloodlessly
free-and-easy, Fraulein so prettily chiming in just as she should, the
little Italian Countess taking notice of everybody, only playing her
little game, objective and cold, like a weasel watching everything, and
extracting her own amusement, never giving herself in the slightest;
then Miss Bradley, heavy and rather subservien