d its eyes. Then it
glanced away at the landscape, looking into the distance as if
completely oblivious of the two human beings.

'Mino,' said Ursula, 'I don't like you. You are a bully like all
males.'

'No,' said Birkin, 'he is justified. He is not a bully. He is only
insisting to the poor stray that she shall acknowledge him as a sort of
fate, her own fate: because you can see she is fluffy and promiscuous
as the wind. I am with him entirely. He wants superfine stability.'

'Yes, I know!' cried Ursula. 'He wants his own way--I know what your
fine words work down to--bossiness, I call it, bossiness.'

The young cat again glanced at Birkin in disdain of the noisy woman.

'I quite agree with you, Miciotto,' said Birkin to the cat. 'Keep your
male dignity, and your higher understanding.'

Again the Mino narrowed his eyes as if he were looking at the sun.
Then, suddenly affecting to have no connection at all with the two
people, he went trotting off, with assumed spontaneity and gaiety, his
tail erect, his white feet blithe.

'Now he will find the belle sauvage once more, and entertain her with
his superior wisdom,' laughed Birkin.

Ursula looked at the man who stood in the garden with his hair blowing
and his eyes smiling ironically, and she cried:

'Oh it makes me so cross, this assumption of male superiority! And it
is such a lie! One wouldn't mind if there were any justification for
it.'

'The wild cat,' said Birkin, 'doesn't mind. She perceives that it is
justified.'

'Does she!' cried Ursula. 'And tell it to the Horse Marines.'

'To them also.'

'It is just like Gerald Crich with his horse--a lust for bullying--a
real Wille zur Macht--so base, so petty.'

'I agree that the Wille zur Macht is a base and petty thing. But with
the Mino, it is the desire to bring this female cat into a pure stable
equilibrium, a transcendent and abiding RAPPORT with the single male.
Whereas without him, as you see, she is a mere stray, a fluffy sporadic
bit of chaos. It is a volonte de pouvoir, if you like, a will to
ability, taking pouvoir as a verb.'

'Ah--! Sophistries! It's the old Adam.'

'Oh yes. Adam kept Eve in the indestructible paradise, when he kept her
single with himself, like a star in its orbit.'

'Yes--yes--' cried Ursula, pointing her finger at him. 'There you
are--a star in its orbit! A satellite--a satellite of Mars--that's what
she is to be! There--there--you've given yourself away! You want a