rd.'

'It is?'

He leaned back in his chair, filled with delight and amusement.

'Well, that's good,' he said. 'And so you came here to wrestle with
your good angel, did you?'

'Did I?' said Birkin.

'Well, it looks like it. Isn't that what you did?'

Now Birkin could not follow Gerald's meaning.

'And what's going to happen?' said Gerald. 'You're going to keep open
the proposition, so to speak?'

'I suppose so. I vowed to myself I would see them all to the devil. But
I suppose I shall ask her again, in a little while.'

Gerald watched him steadily.

'So you're fond of her then?' he asked.

'I think--I love her,' said Birkin, his face going very still and
fixed.

Gerald glistened for a moment with pleasure, as if it were something
done specially to please him. Then his face assumed a fitting gravity,
and he nodded his head slowly.

'You know,' he said, 'I always believed in love--true love. But where
does one find it nowadays?'

'I don't know,' said Birkin.

'Very rarely,' said Gerald. Then, after a pause, 'I've never felt it
myself--not what I should call love. I've gone after women--and been
keen enough over some of them. But I've never felt LOVE. I don't
believe I've ever felt as much LOVE for a woman, as I have for you--not
LOVE. You understand what I mean?'

'Yes. I'm sure you've never loved a woman.'

'You feel that, do you? And do you think I ever shall? You understand
what I mean?' He put his hand to his breast, closing his fist there, as
if he would draw something out. 'I mean that--that I can't express what
it is, but I know it.'

'What is it, then?' asked Birkin.

'You see, I can't put it into words. I mean, at any rate, something
abiding, something that can't change--'

His eyes were bright and puzzled.

'Now do you think I shall ever feel that for a woman?' he said,
anxiously.

Birkin looked at him, and shook his head.

'I don't know,' he said. 'I could not say.'

Gerald had been on the QUI VIVE, as awaiting his fate. Now he drew back
in his chair.

'No,' he said, 'and neither do I, and neither do I.'

'We are different, you and I,' said Birkin. 'I can't tell your life.'

'No,' said Gerald, 'no more can I. But I tell you--I begin to doubt
it!'

'That you will ever love a woman?'

'Well--yes--what you would truly call love--'

'You doubt it?'

'Well--I begin to.'

There was a long pause.

'Life has all kinds of things,' said Birkin. 'There isn't only one
road.'