a vague,
unsubstantial outdoors of dim snow and ghosts of an upper-world, that
made strange shadows before the stars. It was indeed cold, bruisingly,
frighteningly, unnaturally cold. Ursula could not believe the air in
her nostrils. It seemed conscious, malevolent, purposive in its intense
murderous coldness.

Yet it was wonderful, an intoxication, a silence of dim, unrealised
snow, of the invisible intervening between her and the visible, between
her and the flashing stars. She could see Orion sloping up. How
wonderful he was, wonderful enough to make one cry aloud.

And all around was this cradle of snow, and there was firm snow
underfoot, that struck with heavy cold through her boot-soles. It was
night, and silence. She imagined she could hear the stars. She imagined
distinctly she could hear the celestial, musical motion of the stars,
quite near at hand. She seemed like a bird flying amongst their
harmonious motion.

And she clung close to Birkin. Suddenly she realised she did not know
what he was thinking. She did not know where he was ranging.

'My love!' she said, stopping to look at him.

His face was pale, his eyes dark, there was a faint spark of starlight
on them. And he saw her face soft and upturned to him, very near. He
kissed her softly.

'What then?' he asked.

'Do you love me?' she asked.

'Too much,' he answered quietly.

She clung a little closer.

'Not too much,' she pleaded.

'Far too much,' he said, almost sadly.

'And does it make you sad, that I am everything to you?' she asked,
wistful. He held her close to him, kissing her, and saying, scarcely
audible:

'No, but I feel like a beggar--I feel poor.'

She was silent, looking at the stars now. Then she kissed him.

'Don't be a beggar,' she pleaded, wistfully. 'It isn't ignominious that
you love me.'

'It is ignominious to feel poor, isn't it?' he replied.

'Why? Why should it be?' she asked. He only stood still, in the
terribly cold air that moved invisibly over the mountain tops, folding
her round with his arms.

'I couldn't bear this cold, eternal place without you,' he said. 'I
couldn't bear it, it would kill the quick of my life.'

She kissed him again, suddenly.

'Do you hate it?' she asked, puzzled, wondering.

'If I couldn't come near to you, if you weren't here, I should hate it.
I couldn't bear it,' he answered.

'But the people are nice,' she said.

'I mean the stillness, the cold, the frozen eternality,'