lied the father laconically. And the two men turned together
up the path.

Birkin was as thin as Mr Crich, pale and ill-looking. His figure was
narrow but nicely made. He went with a slight trail of one foot, which
came only from self-consciousness. Although he was dressed correctly
for his part, yet there was an innate incongruity which caused a slight
ridiculousness in his appearance. His nature was clever and separate,
he did not fit at all in the conventional occasion. Yet he subordinated
himself to the common idea, travestied himself.

He affected to be quite ordinary, perfectly and marvellously
commonplace. And he did it so well, taking the tone of his
surroundings, adjusting himself quickly to his interlocutor and his
circumstance, that he achieved a verisimilitude of ordinary
commonplaceness that usually propitiated his onlookers for the moment,
disarmed them from attacking his singleness.

Now he spoke quite easily and pleasantly to Mr Crich, as they walked
along the path; he played with situations like a man on a tight-rope:
but always on a tight-rope, pretending nothing but ease.

'I'm sorry we are so late,' he was saying. 'We couldn't find a
button-hook, so it took us a long time to button our boots. But you
were to the moment.'

'We are usually to time,' said Mr Crich.

'And I'm always late,' said Birkin. 'But today I was REALLY punctual,
only accidentally not so. I'm sorry.'

The two men were gone, there was nothing more to see, for the time.
Ursula was left thinking about Birkin. He piqued her, attracted her,
and annoyed her.

She wanted to know him more. She had spoken with him once or twice, but
only in his official capacity as inspector. She thought he seemed to
acknowledge some kinship between her and him, a natural, tacit
understanding, a using of the same language. But there had been no time
for the understanding to develop. And something kept her from him, as
well as attracted her to him. There was a certain hostility, a hidden
ultimate reserve in him, cold and inaccessible.

Yet she wanted to know him.

'What do you think of Rupert Birkin?' she asked, a little reluctantly,
of Gudrun. She did not want to discuss him.

'What do I think of Rupert Birkin?' repeated Gudrun. 'I think he's
attractive--decidedly attractive. What I can't stand about him is his
way with other people--his way of treating any little fool as if she
were his greatest consideration. One feels so awfully sold, onese