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.

'I was going on,' said Ursula. 'Mr Birkin wanted me to see the rooms.
Isn't it delightful to live here? It is perfect.'

'Yes,' said Hermione, abstractedly. Then she turned right away from
Ursula, ceased to know her existence.

'How do you feel, Rupert?' she sang in a new, affectionate tone, to
Birkin.

'Very well,' he replied.

'Were you quite comfortable?' The curious, sinister, rapt look was on
Hermione's face, she shrugged her bosom in a convulsed movement, and
seemed like one half in a trance.

'Quite comfortable,' he replied.

There was a long pause, whilst Hermione looked at him for a long time,
from under her heavy, drugged eyelids.

'And you think you'll be happy here?' she said at last.

'I'm sure I shall.'

'I'm sure I shall do anything for him as I can,' said the labourer's
wife. 'And I'm sure our master wil