Bokhara,' said Gerald. 'I like it.'

'I like it too.'

Birkin was silent, thinking how scrupulous Gerald was in his attire,
how expensive too. He wore silk socks, and studs of fine workmanship,
and silk underclothing, and silk braces. Curious! This was another of
the differences between them. Birkin was careless and unimaginative
about his own appearance.

'Of course you,' said Gerald, as if he had been thinking; 'there's
something curious about you. You're curiously strong. One doesn't
expect it, it is rather surprising.'

Birkin laughed. He was looking at the handsome figure of the other man,
blond and comely in the rich robe, and he was half thinking of the
difference between it and himself--so different; as far, perhaps, apart
as man from woman, yet in another direction. But really it was Ursula,
it was the woman who was gaining ascendance over Birkin's being, at
this moment. Gerald was becoming dim again, lapsing out of him.

'Do you know,' he said suddenly, 'I went and proposed to Ursula
Brangwen tonight, that she should marry me.'

He saw the blank shining wonder come over Gerald's face.

'You did?'

'Yes. Almost formally--speaking first to her father, as it should be,
in the world--though that was accident--or mischief.'

Gerald only stared in wonder, as if he did not grasp.

'You don't mean to say that you seriously went and asked her father to
let you marry her?'

'Yes,' said Birkin, 'I did.'

'What, had you spoken to her before about it, then?'

'No, not a word. I suddenly thought I would go there and ask her--and
her father happened to come instead of her--so I asked him first.'

'If you could have her?' concluded Gerald.

'Ye-es, that.'

'And you didn't speak to her?'

'Yes. She came in afterwards. So it was put to her as well.'

'It was! And what did she say then? You're an engaged man?'

'No,--she only said she didn't want to be bullied into answering.'

'She what?'

'Said she didn't want to be bullied into answering.'

'"Said she didn't want to be bullied into answering!" Why, what did she
mean by that?'

Birkin raised his shoulders. 'Can't say,' he answered. 'Didn't want to
be bothered just then, I suppose.'

'But is this really so? And what did you do then?'

'I walked out of the house and came here.'

'You came straight here?'

'Yes.'

Gerald stared in amazement and amusement. He could not take it in.

'But is this really true, as you say it now?'

'Word for wo