id Hilda, hard as a hammer-stroke, and pale with anger.
     `I  shall if  I possibly can.  I  should  be fearfully proud if I had a
child by him.'
     It was no use talking to her. Hilda pondered.
     `And doesn't Clifford suspect?' she said.
     `Oh no! Why should he?'
     `I've no doubt you've given him plenty of occasion for suspicion,' said
Hilda.
     `Not it all.'
     `And tonight's business seems quite  gratuitous folly.  Where does  the
man live?'
     `In the cottage at the other end of the wood.'
     `Is he a bachelor?'
     `No! His wife left him.'
     `How old?'
     `I don't know. Older than me.'
     Hilda became more angry at every reply, angry as her mother used to be,
in a kind of paroxysm. But still she hid it.
     `I would give up tonight's escapade if I were you,' she advised calmly.
     `I can't! I must stay with him tonight, or I can't go to Venice at all.
I just can't.'
     Hilda heard  her father  over  again,  and she  gave way,  out  of mere
diplomacy. And she consented to drive to Mansfield, both of them, to dinner,
to  bring  Connie back to the lane-end after dark, and to fetch her from the
lane-end the next morning,  herself sleeping in Mansfield, only half an hour
away, good going.
     But she was furious. She stored it up against  her sister, this balk in
her plans.
     Connie flung an emerald-green shawl over her window-sill.
     On the strength of her anger, Hilda warmed toward Clifford.
     After  all,  he had a mind. And if he had no sex, functionally, all the
better:  so much the less to quarrel about! Hilda wanted no more of that sex
business, where men became  nasty, selfish little horrors. Connie really had
less to put up with than many women if she did but know it.
     And Clifford decided that Hilda, after all, was a decidedly intelligent
woman, and would make a man a first-rate  helpmate, if he  were going in for
politics for example. Yes, she had none  of Connie's  silliness,  Connie was
more  a  child:  you had to  make  excuses  for  her,  because she  was  not
altogether dependable.
     There was an early cup of tea in the hall, where doors were open to let
in the sun. Everybody seemed to be panting a little.
     `Good-bye, Connie girl! Come back to me safely.'
     `Good-bye, Clifford! Yes, I shan't be long.' Connie was almost tender.
     `Good-bye, Hilda! You will keep an eye on her, won't you?'
     `I'll even keep two!' said Hilda. `She shan't go very far astray.'
     `It's a promise!'
     `Good-bye, Mrs Bolton! I know you'll look after Sir Clifford nobly.'
     `I'll do what I can, your Ladyship.'
     `And write to me if there  is any news, and tell me about Sir Clifford,
how he is.'
     `Very good, your Ladyship, I will. And have a good  time, and come back
and cheer us up.'
     Everybody waved. The car went off  Connie looked back and saw Clifford,
sitting  at the top of the steps  in his  house-chair. After all, he was her
husband: Wragby was her home: circumstance had done it.
     Mrs Chambers held the gate and wished her ladyship a happy holiday. The
car slipped out of the dark spinney that masked the park, on to the highroad
where  the colliers were trailing home. Hilda turned to  the Crosshill Road,
that was not a main road, but ran to Mansfield. Connie put on goggles.  They
ran beside the railway, which was in a cutting below them. Then they crossed
the cutting on a bridge.
     `That's the lane to the cottage!' said Connie.
     Hilda glanced at it impatiently.
     `It's a frightful  pity we can't go straight  off!'  she said. We could
have been in Pall Mall by nine o'clock.'
     `I'm sorry for your sake,' said Connie, from behind her goggles.
     They  were   soon  at   Mansfield,  that  once-romantic,   now  utterly
disheartening  colliery  town.  Hilda  stopped  at  the  hotel named in  the
motor-car book, and took  a room. The whole thing was utterly uninteresting,
and  she was  almost too  angry to talk.  However,  Connie had to  tell  her
something of the man's history.
     `He! He! What name do you call him by? You only say he,' said Hilda.
     `I've never called  him by any name: nor he  me: which is curious, when
you come  to think of it. Unless we say Lady  Jane and  John Thomas. But his
name is Oliver Mellors.'
     `And  how would  you  like  to be Mrs  Oliver Mellors, instead  of Lady
Chatterley?'
     `I'd love it.'
     There was nothing to  be  done with Connie. And anyhow, if the man  had
been a lieutenant in the  army in India for four or  five years, he  must be
more or less presentable. Apparently he had character. Hilda began to relent
a little.
     `But you'll be through with him in awhile,' she said, `and  then you'll
be  ashamed of having been connected  with him.  One  can't mix up with  the
working people.'
     `But you are such a socialist! you're always on the side of the working
classes.'
     `I may be on their side in a political crisis,  but being on their side
makes me know how impossible it is to mix one's life with theirs. Not out of
snobbery, but just because the whole rhythm is different.'
     Hilda  had lived  among the real  political  intellectuals,  so she was
disastrously unanswerable.
     The nondescript evening in the hotel dragged out, and  at last they had
a nondescript dinner. Then Connie slipped a  few things  into  a little silk
bag, and combed her hair once more.
     `After all, Hilda,' she said, `love can be wonderful: when you feel you
live, and are in the very middle  of creation.' It was almost like  bragging
on her part.
     `I suppose every mosquito feels the same,' said Hilda. `Do you think it
does? How nice for it!'
     The evening was wonderfully clear and long-lingering, even in the small
town.  It  would  be half-light all night.  With  a face  like  a mask, from
resentment,  Hilda started  her  car again,  and the two sped back on  their
traces, taking the other road, through Bolsover.
     Connie wore  her  goggles and disguising cap, and she sat  in  silence.
Because of Hilda's Opposition, she was fiercely on the sidle of the man, she
would stand by him through thick and thin.
     They had their head-lights  on, by the time they  passed Crosshill, and
the small lit-up  train that chuffed past in the cutting made it  seem  like
real night. Hilda had  calculated the turn into  the lane at the bridge-end.
She slowed up rather  suddenly  and swerved off the road, the lights glaring
white into the grassy, overgrown lane. Connie looked out. She saw  a shadowy
figure, and she opened the door.
     `Here we are!' she said softly.
     But Hilda had switched off the lights, and was absorbed backing, making
the turn.
     `Nothing on the bridge?'  she asked shortly. `You're all  right,'  said
the mall's voice. She  backed on  to  the  bridge, reversed, let the car run
forwards a few  yards along the  road,  then  backed into the lane, under  a
wych-elm tree, crushing the grass and bracken. Then all the lights went out.
Connie stepped down. The man stood under the trees.
     `Did you wait long?' Connie asked.
     `Not so very,' he replied.
     They both waited  for Hilda  to get out. But Hilda shut the door of the
car and sat tight.
     `This is my sister Hilda. Won't you come and  speak to her? Hilda! This
is Mr Mellors.'
     The keeper lifted his hat, but went no nearer.
     `Do walk down to the cottage with us, Hilda,' Connie pleaded. `It's not
far.'
     `What about the car?'
     `People do leave them on the lanes. You have the key.'
     Hilda was  silent, deliberating.  Then  she  looked backwards  down the
lane.
     `Can I back round the bush?' she said.
     `Oh yes!' said the keeper.
     She backed slowly round the curve, out of sight of the road, locked the
car, and got down. It was night, but luminous dark. The hedges rose high and
wild,  by the unused  lane, and very dark  seeming. There was a  fresh sweet
scent  on  the air. The keeper went ahead, then came Connie, then Hilda, and
in silence. He lit up  the difficult places  with  a flash-light  torch, and
they went on again, while  an owl softly hooted over the oaks,  and  Flossie
padded silently around. Nobody could speak. There was nothing to say.
     At length Connie saw the yellow light  of the house, and her heart beat
fast. She was a little frightened. They trailed on, still in Indian file.
     He unlocked  the door and preceded  them into the warm but bare  little
room. The fire  burned low and  red in the grate. The table was set with two
plates and two glasses on a proper white table-cloth for  Once.  Hilda shook
her hair and looked round  the  bare, cheerless room. Then she  summoned her
courage and looked at the man.
     He was moderately tall, and thin,  and she thought him good-looking. He
kept a quiet distance of his own, and seemed absolutely unwilling to speak.
     `Do sit down, Hilda,' said Connie.
     `Do!'  he said. `Can I make you  tea or  anything, or will you  drink a
glass of beer? It's moderately cool.'
     `Beer!' said Connie.
     `Beer  for  me, please!' said Hilda, with a mock  sort of  shyness.  He
looked at her and blinked.
     He took a blue jug and tramped to the scullery.  When he came back with
the beer, his face had changed again.
     Connie sat down by the door, and  Hilda sat  in his seat, with the back
to the wall, against the window corner.
     `That is his chair,' said  Connie softly.' And  Hilda rose as if it had
burnt her.
     `Sit yer still, sit yer still! Ta'e ony cheer as yo'n a  mind  to, none
of us is th' big bear,' he said, with complete equanimity.
     And he brought Hilda a glass,  and poured her beer  first from the blue
jug.
     `As  for cigarettes,' he  said, `I've  got none, but 'appen you've  got
your own. I dunna smoke,  mysen. Shall y' eat summat?'  He turned  direct to
Connie. `Shall t'eat a smite o' summat, if I bring it thee? Tha can  usually
do wi' a bite.' He spoke the vernacular with a curious calm assurance, as if
he were the landlord of the Inn.
     `What is there?' asked Connie, flushing.
     `Boiled ham, cheese, pickled wa'nuts, if yer like.---Nowt much.'
     `Yes,' said Connie. `Won't you, Hilda?'
     Hilda looked up at him.
     `Why do you speak Yorkshire?' she said softly.
     `That! That's non Yorkshire, that's Derby.'
     He looked back at her with that faint, distant grin.
     `Derby, then!  Why  do you speak  Derby? You spoke natural  English  at
first.'
     `Did Ah though? An' canna Ah change if Ah'm a mind to 't? Nay, nay, let
me talk Derby if it suits me. If yo'n nowt against it.'
     `It sounds a little affected,' said Hilda.
     `Ay,  'appen  so! An' up i' Tevershall yo'd sound affected.'  He looked
again at her, with a queer calculating distance, along his cheek-bone: as if
to say: Yi, an' who are you?
     He tramped away to the pantry for the food.
     The sisters sat in  silence. He  brought another  plate,  and knife and
fork. The he said:
     `An' if  it's the  same to you, I s'll ta'e my  coat  off like I allers
do.'
     And  he took  off his  coat,  and hung it on the peg, then  sat down to
table in his shirt-sleeves: a shirt of thin, cream-coloured flannel.
     `'Elp yerselves!' he said. `'Elp yerselves! Dunna  wait f'r axin'!'  He
cut the bread, then sat motionless. Hilda felt, as Connie once used to,  his
power  of silence and distance. She saw his  smallish, sensitive, loose hand
on the table. He was no simple working man, not he: he was acting! acting!
     `Still!'  she said,  as  she  took a little  cheese.  `It would be more
natural if you spoke to us in normal English, not in vernacular.'
     He looked at her, feeling her devil of a will.
     `Would  it?' he said in the normal English.  `Would it?  Would anything
that was  said  between  you and  me be quite  natural, unless you said  you
wished me to hell  before  your sister ever saw me  again: and unless I said
something almost as unpleasant back again? Would anything else be natural?'
     `Oh yes!' said Hilda. `Just good manners would be quite natural.'
     `Second nature, so  to speak!' he said: then he began to laugh.  `Nay,'
he said. `I'm weary o' manners. Let me be!'
     Hilda was frankly baffled and  furiously annoyed. After all,  he  might
show  that he  realized he was  being honoured.  Instead of  which, with his
play-acting and lordly airs, he seemed to think it was he who was conferring
the honour. Just impudence! Poor misguided Connie, in the man's clutches!
     The three  ate  in silence. Hilda  looked to see what his table-manners
were like. She could not  help realizing that he was instinctively much more
delicate and well-bred  than herself. She had a certain Scottish clumsiness.
And moreover, he had all the quiet self-contained assurance of the  English,
no loose edges. It would be very difficult to get the better of him.
     But neither would he get the better of her.
     `And do you really think,' she said, a little more humanly, `it's worth
the risk.'
     `Is what worth what risk?'
     `This escapade with my sister.'
     He flickered his irritating grin.
     `Yo' maun ax 'er!' Then he looked at Connie.
     `Tha  comes o'  thine  own accord, lass, doesn't  ter?  It's non  me as
forces thee?'
     Connie looked at Hilda.
     `I wish you wouldn't cavil, Hilda.'
     `Naturally I don't  want  to. But someone  has to  think about  things.
You've got to  have some sort of continuity in your life. You can't  just go
making a mess.'
     There was a moment's pause.
     `Eh,  continuity!' he said. `An' what by that? What  continuity ave yer
got i'  your  life? I  thought  you was  gettin' divorced. What continuity's
that?  Continuity  o'  yer own stubbornness. I  can see that much. An'  what
good's it goin' to do yer? You'll be sick o' yer continuity  afore yer a fat
sight  older. A stubborn  woman  an er own self-will: ay,  they  make a fast
continuity, they do. Thank heaven,  it isn't me as `as got th'  'andlin'  of
yer!'
     `What right have you to speak like that to me?' said Hilda.
     `Right!  What right ha' yo'  ter start  harnessin' other  folks i' your
continuity? Leave folks to their own continuities.'
     `My dear man, do you think I am concerned with you?' said Hilda softly.
     `Ay,'  he  said. `Yo' are.  For it's a force-put. Yo'  more  or less my
sister-in-law.'
     `Still far from it, I assure you.
     `Not  a' that far,  I assure  you. I've got my own sort o'  continuity,
back your life! Good as  yours, any day. An' if your sister  there comes ter
me for a bit o' cunt an' tenderness, she knows what she's after. She's  been
in my bed afore: which you 'aven't, thank the  Lord, with your  continuity.'
There was  a  dead pause,  before he added: `---Eh, I don't wear me breeches
arse-forrards. An' if I  get a windfall, I thank my stars.  A man gets a lot
of enjoyment out o' that  lass theer, which is more than anybody gets out o'
th'  likes o' you. Which is a pity, for you might appen a' bin a good apple,
'stead of a handsome crab. Women like you needs proper graftin'.'
     He was looking at her with  an odd, flickering smile,  faintly  sensual
and appreciative.
     `And men like you,' she said, `ought to be segregated: justifying their
own vulgarity and selfish lust.'
     `Ay,  ma'am!  It's  a  mercy there's a few men  left like  me. But  you
deserve what you get: to be left severely alone.'
     Hilda  had risen and gone to the door. He rose  and took his coat  from
the peg.
     `I can find my way quite well alone,' she said.
     `I doubt you can't,' he replied easily.
     They tramped in ridiculous file down the lane again, in silence. An owl
still hooted. He knew he ought to shoot it.
     The car stood untouched, a  little  dewy.  Hilda got in and started the
engine. The other two waited.
     `All  I  mean,' she  said from  her entrenchment, `is  that I  doubt if
you'll find it's been worth it, either of you!'
     `One man's meat is another man's poison,' he said, out of the darkness.
`But it's meat an' drink to me.
     The lights flared out.
     `Don't make me wait in the morning,'
     `No, I won't. Goodnight!'
     The car rose slowly on to the highroad, then slid swiftly away, leaving
the night silent.
     Connie  timidly took his  arm, and they went down the lane.  He did not
speak. At length she drew him to a standstill.
     `Kiss me!' she murmured.
     `Nay, wait a bit! Let me simmer down,' he said.
     That amused her. She still kept  hold of his arm, and they went quickly
down the lane, in silence.  She was  so  glad to be with him, just now.  She
shivered,  knowing  that  Hilda  might  have  snatched   her  away.  He  was
inscrutably silent.
     When they were in  the cottage again, she almost  jumped with pleasure,
that she should be free of her sister.
     `But you were horrid to Hilda,' she said to him.
     `She should ha' been slapped in time.'
     `But why? and she's so nice.'
     He  didn't  answer, went round doing the evening chores,  with a quiet,
inevitable  sort  of motion.  He was  outwardly  angry, but not with her. So
Connie felt.  And his  anger gave him a peculiar handsomeness, an inwardness
and glisten that thrilled her and made her limbs go molten.
     Still he took no notice of her.
     Till he sat down and began to  unlace  his boots.  Then he looked up at
her from under his brows, on which the anger still sat firm.
     `Shan't you go up?' he said. `There's a candle!'
     He jerked his head swiftly to indicate the candle burning on the table.
She took it  obediently,  and he watched the  full  curve of her hips as she
went up the first stairs.
     It was a night of  sensual passion, in which  she was a little startled
and almost unwilling: yet pierced again with piercing thrills of sensuality,
different,  sharper, more  terrible than the thrills  of tenderness, but, at
the moment, more desirable. Though a little frightened, she let him have his
way, and the reckless, shameless  sensuality shook  her  to her foundations,
stripped her to the very last, and made a different woman of her. It was not
really love. It was not voluptuousness. It was sensuality sharp and  searing
as fire, burning the soul to tinder.
     Burning out the shames, the deepest, oldest shames, in the  most secret
places. It cost her an effort to let  him have his way  and his will of her.
She  had to be a passive, consenting thing, like a slave,  a physical slave.
Yet the passion  licked round her, consuming, and  when the sensual flame of
it pressed through her bowels and breast, she really thought she was  dying:
yet a poignant, marvellous death.
     She had often wondered what  Abčlard meant, when he  said that in their
year  of  love  he  and  Hčloîse  had  passed  through  all the  stages  and
refinements of passion. The same  thing, a  thousand years ago: ten thousand
years  ago!  The  same  on the Greek  vases, everywhere! The  refinements of
passion, the extravagances of sensuality! And necessary,  forever necessary,
to burn out false shames  and  smelt out the heaviest ore of  the  body into
purity. With the fire of sheer sensuality.
     In the  short summer night she learnt so much. She would have thought a
woman would have died  of shame. Instead of which, the  shame  died.  Shame,
which  is  fear: the  deep Organic shame,  the old, old  physical fear which
crouches in the  bodily roots  of us, and can only  be  chased  away by  the
sensual fire, at last it was roused up and routed by the phallic hunt of the
man, and she came to the very heart of the jungle of herself. She felt, now,
she  had  come  to  the  real bed-rock  of her nature,  and  was essentially
shameless.  She  was  her  sensual  self, naked  and unashamed.  She felt  a
triumph, almost a vainglory. So!  That was how it  was! That was  life! That
was how oneself really was! There was nothing left to disguise or be ashamed
of. She shared her ultimate nakedness with a man, another being.
     And what  a reckless devil the man was! really like a devil! One had to
be strong to bear him. But it took some getting at, the core of the physical
jungle, the  last  and deepest recess of  organic shame. The  phallos  alone
could explore it. And how he had pressed in on her!
     And how, in fear, she had hated  it. But how  she had really wanted it!
She knew now. At the bottom  of her soul, fundamentally, she had needed this
phallic hunting  Out, she had secretly  wanted it, and she had believed that
she would never get it. Now suddenly there it was, and a man was sharing her
last and final nakedness, she was shameless.
     What  liars  poets and  everybody  were! They made one think one wanted
sentiment.  When what one supremely wanted  was  this  piercing,  consuming,
rather awful sensuality. To find a man who dared do it, without shame or sin
or  final  misgiving!  If he had  been ashamed afterwards, and made one feel
ashamed, how awful!  What a pity most men are so doggy, a bit shameful, like
Clifford!  Like Michaelis even! Both sensually a bit doggy and  humiliating.
The supreme pleasure  of the mind! And what is that  to a woman? What is it,
really, to  the  man either! He becomes merely  messy and doggy, even in his
mind. It  needs  sheer sensuality even to purify and quicken the mind. Sheer
fiery sensuality, not messiness.
     Ah, God,  how  rare a thing a man  is! They are all dogs that  trot and
sniff and copulate. To  have found a man who was not afraid and not ashamed!
She looked at him now, sleeping so like a wild animal asleep, gone,  gone in
the remoteness of it. She nestled down, not to be away from him.
     Till his  rousing  waked  her  completely. He was  sitting up  in  bed,
looking  down  at  her.  She saw her own  nakedness  in his  eyes, immediate
knowledge of her. And the fluid, male knowledge of herself seemed to flow to
her from his  eyes and wrap her voluptuously. Oh, how  voluptuous and lovely
it was to have limbs and body half-asleep, heavy and suffused with passion.
     `Is it time to wake up?' she said.
     `Half past six.'
     She had to be  at the  lane-end at  eight. Always, always, always  this
compulsion on one!
     `I might make the breakfast and bring it up here; should I?' he said.
     `Oh yes!'
     Flossie whimpered gently below. He  got  up and  threw off his pyjamas,
and rubbed himself with a towel. When the human being is full of courage and
full  of life, how beautiful it  is!  So she thought,  as she watched him in
silence.
     `Draw the curtain, will you?'
     The sun was  shining already on the tender green leaves of morning, and
the  wood stood bluey-fresh,  in the nearness. She sat  up  in  bed, looking
dreamily  out through the dormer  window, her naked arms pushing  her  naked
breasts together. He was dressing himself.  She was half-dreaming of life, a
life together with him: just a life.
     He was going, fleeing from her dangerous, crouching nakedness.
     `Have I lost my nightie altogether?' she said.
     He pushed his  hand down  in the bed, and pulled  out the bit of flimsy
silk.
     `I knowed I felt silk at my ankles,' he said.
     But the night-dress was slit almost in two.
     `Never mind!' she said. `It belongs here, really. I'll leave it.'
     `Ay, leave it,  I can  put it between my legs at  night,  for  company.
There's no name nor mark on it, is there?'
     She slipped on  the  torn  thing, and sat dreamily looking  out of  the
window. The window was Open, the air of morning drifted in, and the sound of
birds.  Birds  flew continuously past. Then  she saw Flossie roaming out. It
was morning.
     Downstairs she  heard him making the  fire, pumping water, going out at
the back door. By  and by came the smell of  bacon,  and at  length he  came
upstairs with a huge black tray that would only just go through the door. He
set the tray on the bed, and poured out the tea. Connie squatted in her torn
nightdress, and fell on her food hungrily. He sat on the one chair, with his
plate on his knees.
     `How good it is!' she said. `How nice to have breakfast together.'
     He  ate in silence, his mind on the time that was quickly passing. That
made her remember.
     `Oh, how  I wish I could stay here with you,  and Wragby were a million
miles away! It's  Wragby I'm going away  from  really. You know that,  don't
you?'
     `Ay!'
     `And you  promise we will live together and have  a  life together, you
and me! You promise me, don't you?'
     `Ay! When we can.'
     `Yes! And we will! we will, won't we?' she leaned  over, making the tea
spill, catching his wrist.
     `Ay!' he said, tidying up the tea.
     `We  can't  possibly  not  live  together  now,  can   we?'   she  said
appealingly.
     He looked up at her with his flickering grin.
     `No!' he said. `Only you've got to start in twenty-five minutes.'
     `Have I?' she cried. Suddenly he held up a warning finger, and  rose to
his feet.
     Flossie had given a short bark, then three loud sharp yaps of warning.
     Silent,  he  put his plate  on  the tray and went downstairs. Constance
heard him go down the garden path. A bicycle bell tinkled outside there.
     `Morning, Mr Mellors! Registered letter!'
     `Oh ay! Got a pencil?'
     `Here y'are!'
     There was a pause.
     `Canada!' said the stranger's voice.
     `Ay! That's a mate o'  mine out there in  British  Columbia. Dunno what
he's got to register.'
     `'Appen sent y'a fortune, like.'
     `More like wants summat.'
     Pause.
     `Well! Lovely day again!'
     `Ay!'
     `Morning!'
     `Morning!'
     After a time he came upstairs again, looking a little angry.
     `Postman,' he said.
     `Very early!' she replied.
     `Rural round; he's mostly here by seven, when he does come.
     `Did your mate send you a fortune?'
     `No!  Only some  photographs  and papers about a  place  out  there  in
British Columbia.'
     `Would you go there?'
     `I thought perhaps we might.'
     `Oh yes! I believe it's lovely!' But he was put out  by  the  postman's
coming.
     `Them  damn bikes, they're on you afore you know where you are.  I hope
he twigged nothing.'
     `After all, what could he twig!'
     `You must  get up  now, and get  ready. I'm just  goin' ter  look round
outside.'
     She saw him go  reconnoitring into the lane, with dog and gun. She went
downstairs and washed, and was ready by  the time he came back, with the few
things in the little silk bag.
     He  locked up, and they  set off, but through  the  wood, not down  the
lane. He was being wary.
     `Don't you think one lives for times like last night?' she said to him.
     `Ay!  But there's  the rest  o'times  to think  on,' he replied, rather
short.
     They plodded on down the overgrown path, he in front, in silence.
     `And  we  will live  together and make a life together, won't  we?' she
pleaded.
     `Ay!' he replied,  striding on without  looking  round.  `When  t' time
comes! Just now you're off to Venice or somewhere.'
     She followed him dumbly, with sinking heart. Oh, now she was wae to go!
     At last he stopped.
     `I'll just strike across here,' he said, pointing to the right.
     But she flung her arms round his neck, and clung to him.
     `But  you'll keep the tenderness for me,  won't you?' she whispered. `I
loved last night. But you'll keep the tenderness for me, won't you?'
     He  kissed  her and  held her close for a moment. Then he  sighed,  and
kissed her again.
     `I must go an' look if th' car's there.'
     He strode over the  low brambles and  bracken, leaving a  trail through
the fern. For a minute or two he was gone. Then he came striding back.
     `Car's  not there yet,'  he  said. `But there's the  baker's cart on t'
road.'
     He seemed anxious and troubled.
     `Hark!'
     They heard  a car softly hoot as  it  came nearer. It slowed up  on the
bridge.
     She plunged with  utter mournfulness in his track through the fern, and
came to a huge holly hedge. He was just behind her.
     `Here! Go through there!' he said,  pointing to  a gap. `I shan't  come
out.
     She  looked at him in despair. But he  kissed her  and made her go. She
crept  in sheer  misery  through  the holly  and through  the  wooden fence,
stumbled down  the little ditch  and up  into the lane, where Hilda was just
getting out of the car in vexation.
     `Why you're there!' said Hilda. `Where's he?'
     `He's not coming.'
     Connie's face was  running with tears as she got into the  car with her
little bag.  Hilda snatched  up  the motoring  helmet  with the  disfiguring
goggles.
     `Put it on!' she said. And Connie pulled on the disguise, then the long
motoring  coat,  and  she  sat  down,  a  goggling  inhuman,  unrecognizable
creature. Hilda  started the car with a businesslike motion. They heaved out
of the lane, and were away down the road. Connie had looked round, but there
was no  sight of him.  Away! Away! She sat in bitter tears. The parting  had
come so suddenly, so unexpectedly. It was like death.
     `Thank goodness you'll  be away  from him for  some  time!' said Hilda,
turning to avoid Crosshill village.

        Chapter 17

     `You  see,  Hilda,'  said Connie after  lunch, when  they  were nearing
London, `you have never known either real tenderness or real sensuality: and
if you do know them, with the same person, it makes a great difference.'
     `For mercy's sake don't brag about your experiences!' said Hilda. `I've
never  met  the man  yet who  was capable of intimacy with  a  woman, giving
himself  up  to  her.  That  was  what  I  wanted.  I'm  not keen  on  their
self-satisfied tenderness, and their sensuality.  I'm not  content to be any
man's  little  petsy-wetsy,  nor  his  chair ţ plaisir  either.  I  wanted a
complete intimacy, and I didn't get it. That's enough for me.
     Connie  pondered  this.  Complete  intimacy! She  supposed  that  meant
revealing everything  concerning  yourself to  the  other  person,  and  his
revealing everything concerning himself. But that was  a bore.  And all that
weary self-consciousness between a man and a woman! a disease!
     `I  think  you're  too  conscious  of  yourself  all   the  time,  with
everybody,' she said to her sister.
     `I hope at least I haven't a slave nature,' said Hilda.
     `But  perhaps you have! Perhaps  you  are  a slave to your own  idea of
yourself.'
     Hilda  drove  in  silence for some time after this piece  of unheard of
insolence from that chit Connie.
     `At  least  I'm  not a slave  to  somebody  else's idea of me:  and the
somebody  else a servant of my  husband's,'  she  retorted at last, in crude
anger.
     `You see, it's not so,' said Connie calmly.
     She  had  always let herself be  dominated  by  her elder sister.  Now,
though somewhere inside  herself  she  was  weeping,  she was  free  of  the
dominion of other  women. Ah! that in itself was  a relief, like being given
another  life: to be free  of  the strange  dominion and  obsession of other
women. How awful they were, women!
     She  was glad  to  be with her  father, whose favourite she  had always
been. She and Hilda stayed in a little  hotel off Pall Mall, and Sir Malcolm
was in his club. But  he took  his  daughters  out in  the evening, and they
liked going with him.
     He was still handsome and robust, though just  a little  afraid of  the
new world  that  had sprung up  around  him.  He  had  got a  second wife in
Scotland, younger than himself and richer. But  he had as many holidays away
from her as possible: just as with his first wife.
     Connie sat  next to him at the opera. He was moderately  stout, and had
stout thighs,  but they  were  still strong and  well-knit, the  thighs of a
healthy  man  who  had   taken  his  pleasure  in  life.  His  good-humoured
selfishness, his dogged sort of independence, his unrepenting sensuality, it
seemed to Connie  she could see them  all  in his well-knit straight thighs.
Just  a  man!  And  now becoming  an old man, which is sad.  Because in  his
strong, thick  male legs there was none of the alert sensitiveness and power
of  tenderness which is the very essence  of youth, that  which  never dies,
once it is there.
     Connie woke up to  the existence of legs. They became more important to
her  than faces,  which  are no longer very real. How few  people  had live,
alert  legs! She looked at  the men in the stalls. Great puddingy thighs  in
black  pudding-cloth,  or  lean  wooden sticks in  black funeral  stuff,  or
well-shaped young legs  without any meaning  whatever, either  sensuality or
tenderness  or sensitiveness,  just  mere  leggy  ordinariness that  pranced
around.  Not  even any sensuality like her father's. They  were all daunted,
daunted out of existence.
     But  the women were not daunted. The awful mill-posts of most  females!
really shocking, really enough to justify murder! Or  the poor thin pegs! or
the trim neat  things in silk stockings, without the slightest look of life!
Awful, the millions of meaningless legs prancing meaninglessly around!
     But  she was not  happy in  London.  The people  seemed so spectral and
blank. They had no  alive  happiness, no  matter how brisk  and good-looking
they  were.  It  was all barren. And Connie had a woman's  blind craving for
happiness, to be assured of happiness.
     In  Paris  at any rate she felt a bit of sensuality  still. But what  a
weary, tired,  worn-out sensuality.  Worn-out for  lack  of  tenderness. Oh!
Paris was  sad.  One  of  the  saddest  towns: weary of  its  now-mechanical
sensuality,  weary  of  the tension of money, money,  money,  weary even  of
resentment  and  conceit, just weary  to death, and still  not  sufficiently
Americanized  or  Londonized  to  hide  the  weariness  under  a  mechanical
jig-jig-jig! Ah,  these  manly  he-men,  these  fláneurs, the oglers,  these
eaters of good dinners! How weary they were! weary,  worn-out for lack  of a
little tenderness, given  and taken. The efficient, sometimes charming women
knew  a  thing or two  about the  sensual realities: they had that pull over
their jigging English  sisters. But they knew  even less of tenderness. Dry,
with  the endless dry tension of will, they too were wearing  out. The human
world was just getting worn out. Perhaps it would turn fiercely destructive.
A sort of  anarchy!  Clifford  and  his  conservative  anarchy!  Perhaps  it
wouldn't be  conservative much  longer. Perhaps it would develop into a very
radical anarchy.
     Connie found herself shrinking and afraid  of the world. Sometimes  she
was happy  for a  little while in  the Boulevards  or  in  the  Bois  or the
Luxembourg Gardens. But  already Paris was full  of  Americans and  English,
strange Americans in the  oddest uniforms, and the usual dreary English that
are so hopeless abroad.
     She was glad to drive  on.  It was suddenly  hot weather, so  Hilda was
going through Switzerland and over  the Brenner, then  through the Dolomites
down  to Venice.  Hilda  loved all the managing and the  driving  and  being
mistress of the show. Connie was quite content to keep quiet.
     And the trip was really quite nice. Only Connie kept saying to herself:
Why don't I  really care! Why am I never really thrilled? How awful, that  I
don't really care about  the landscape any  more! But I  don't. It's  rather
awful.  I'm like Saint  Bernard,  who could  sail down the lake  of  Lucerne
without ever noticing that  there were even mountain and green water. I just
don't care  for landscape any more.  Why should one stare at it?  Why should
one? I refuse to.
     No,  she found nothing vital in France  or  Switzerland or the Tyrol or
Italy. She just was carted  through  it all.  And it was  all less real than
Wragby. Less real than the awful Wragby!  She felt  she  didn't care  if she
never saw France or Switzerland or Italy again. They'd keep. Wragby was more
real.
     As for people! people were all alike, with very little difference. They
all wanted to get money out of you: or, if they were travellers, they wanted
to get  enjoyment, perforce,  like  squeezing  blood out  of  a stone.  Poor
mountains!  poor  landscape! it all had  to  be  squeezed  and  squeezed and
squeezed  again, to provide a thrill, to provide enjoyment.  What did people
mean, with their simply determined enjoying of themselves?
     No! said  Connie  to herself  I'd rather be at Wragby,  where I can  go
about and be still,  and  not stare at anything or do any performing of  any
sort.  This  tourist  performance of  enjoying  oneself  is  too  hopelessly
humiliating: it's such a failure.
     She  wanted  to  go  back  to Wragby, even  to  Clifford, even to  poor
crippled Clifford. He wasn't  such a fool as this  swarming holidaying  lot,
anyhow.
     But in her inner  consciousness she  was keeping  touch  with the other
man. She mustn't let her  connexion with him  go: oh, she mustn't let it go,
or she was lost, lost  utterly in this world of riff-raffy  expensive people
and  joy-hogs. Oh, the joy-hogs! Oh `enjoying oneself'! Another  modern form
of sickness.
     They left the car  in Mestre, in a garage, and took the regular steamer
over  to  Venice.  It  was  a lovely summer  afternoon,  the  shallow lagoon
rippled,  the full sunshine made Venice, turning its back to them across the
water, look dim.
     At  the station  quay they changed to  a  gondola, giving the  man  the
address.  He was a regular  gondolier in  a white-and-blue blouse,  not very
good-looking, not at all impressive.
     `Yes! The Villa  Esmeralda! Yes! I know it!  I have  been the gondolier
for a gentleman there. But a fair distance out!'
     He seemed a rather childish,  impetuous fellow. He rowed with a certain
exaggerated  impetuosity,  through  the dark side-canals  with the horrible,
slimy green walls, the canals that go through the poorer quarters, where the
washing hangs high up  on ropes, and there is a  slight, or strong, odour of
sewage.
     But at last he came to one  of the  open canals with pavement on either
side, and  looping bridges, that run  straight, at right-angles to the Grand
Canal. The two women sat under the little awning, the man was perched above,
behind them.
     `Are  the signorine  staying long  at the Villa  Esmeralda?'  he asked,
rowing  easy,  and  `wiping  his  perspiring  face  with  a   white-and-blue
handkerchief.
     `Some twenty  days: we  are  both  married ladies,'  said Hilda, in her
curious hushed voice, that made her Italian sound so foreign.
     `Ah! Twenty days!'  said the man.  There was  a  pause. After which  he
asked: `Do the signore want a gondolier for the twenty days or so  that they
will stay at the Villa Esmeralda? Or by the day, or by the week?'
     Connie and Hilda considered. In Venice, it is always preferable to have
one's own gondola, as it is preferable to have one's own car on land.
     `What is there at the Villa? what boats?'
     `There is  a motor-launch, also a  gondola. But---' The but meant: they
won't be your property.
     `How much do you charge?'
     It was about thirty shillings a day, or ten pounds a week.
     `Is that the regular price?' asked Hilda.
     `Less, Signora, less. The regular price---'
     The sisters considered.
     `Well,'  said  Hilda,  `come tomorrow morning, and we will arrange  it.
What is your name?'
     His name was  Giovanni, and  he wanted to know at  what time he  should
come, and  then for  whom should he say he was waiting.  Hilda had  no card.
Connie gave  him one  of  hers.  He  glanced  at it  swiftly, with his  hot,
southern blue eyes, then glanced again.
     `Ah!' he said, lighting up. `Milady! Milady, isn't it?'
     `Milady Costanza!' said Connie.
     He nodded, repeating: `Milady Costanza!' and putting the card carefully
away in his blouse.
     The Villa Esmeralda was quite a long way out, on the edge of the lagoon
looking  towards Chioggia.  It was not a very old house, and  pleasant, with
the terraces looking  seawards,  and  below, quite  a big  garden  with dark
trees, walled in from the lagoon.
     Their host was a  heavy, rather coarse  Scotchman who had made  a  good
fortune   in   Italy  before  the  war,  and  had  been  knighted   for  his
ultrapatriotism during the war. His wife  was a  thin, pale,  sharp kind  of
person with no fortune of  her own, and the misfortune of having to regulate
her husband's  rather sordid amorous exploits. He was terribly tiresome with
the  servants.  But having had a slight stroke during the winter, he was now
more manageable.
     The house was pretty full. Besides  Sir Malcolm and his  two daughters,
there were seven more people, a Scotch couple, again with  two  daughters; a
young  Italian Contessa,  a widow; a young  Georgian prince,  and a youngish
English  clergyman  who  had had pneum