'I? No, not that I know of. I merely said to her, that it was dangerous to drive those Highland bullocks—as it is. She turned in such a way, and said—"I suppose you think I’m afraid of you and your cattle, don’t you?" So I asked her "why," and for answer she flung me a back–hander across the face.'
Birkin laughed quickly, as if it pleased him. Gerald looked at him, wondering, and began to laugh as well, saying:
'I didn’t laugh at the time, I assure you. I was never so taken aback in my life.'
'And weren’t you furious?'
'Furious? I should think I was. I’d have murdered her for two pins.'
'H’m!' ejaculated Birkin. 'Poor Gudrun, wouldn’t she suffer afterwards for having given herself away!' He was hugely delighted.
'Would she suffer?' asked Gerald, also amused now.
Both men smiled in malice and amusement.
'Badly, I should think; seeing how self–conscious she is.'
'She is self–conscious, is she? Then what made her do it? For I certainly think it was quite uncalled–for, and quite unjustified.'
'I suppose it was a sudden impulse.'
'Yes, but how do you account for her having such an impulse? I’d done her no harm.'
Birkin shook his head.
'The Amazon suddenly came up in her, I suppose,' he said.
'Well,' replied Gerald, 'I’d rather it had been the Orinoco.'
They both laughed at the poor joke. Gerald was thinking how Gudrun had said she would strike the last blow too. But some reserve made him keep this back from Birkin.
'And you resent it?' Birkin asked.
'I don’t resent it. I don’t care a tinker’s curse about it.' He was silent a moment, then he added, laughing. 'No, I’ll see it through, that’s all. She seemed sorry afterwards.'
'Did she? You’ve not met since that night?'
Gerald’s face clouded.
'No,' he said. 'We’ve been—you can imagine how it’s been, since the accident.'
'Yes. Is it calming down?'
'I don’t know. It’s a shock, of course. But I don’t believe mother minds. I really don’t believe she takes any notice. And what’s so funny, she used to be all for the children—nothing mattered, nothing whatever mattered but the children. And now, she doesn’t take any more notice than if it was one of the servants.'
'No? Did it upset you very much?'
'It’s a shock. But I don’t feel it very much, really. I don’t feel any different. We’ve all got to die, and it doesn’t seem to make any great difference, anyhow, whether you die or not. I can’t feel any grief you know. It leaves me cold. I can’t quite account for it.'
'You don’t care if you die or not?' asked Birkin.
Gerald looked at him with eyes blue as the blue–fibred steel of a weapon. He felt awkward, but indifferent. As a matter of fact, he did care terribly, with a great fear.
'Oh,' he said, 'I don’t want to die, why should I? But I never trouble. The question doesn’t seem to be on the carpet for me at all. It doesn’t interest me, you know.'
'Timor mortis conturbat me,' quoted Birkin, adding—'No, death doesn’t really seem the point any more. It curiously doesn’t concern one. It’s like an ordinary tomorrow.'
Gerald looked closely at his friend. The eyes of the two men met, and an unspoken understanding was exchanged.
Gerald narrowed his eyes, his face was cool and unscrupulous as he looked at Birkin, impersonally, with a vision that ended in a point in space, strangely keen–eyed and yet blind.
'If death isn’t the point,' he said, in a strangely abstract, cold, fine voice—'what is?' He sounded as if he had been found out.
'What is?' re–echoed Birkin. And there was a mocking silence.
'There’s long way to go, after the point of intrinsic death, before we disappear,' said Birkin.
'There is,' said Gerald. 'But what sort of way?' He seemed to press the other man for knowledge which he himself knew far better than Birkin did.
'Right down the slopes of degeneration—mystic, universal degeneration. There are many stages of pure degradation to go through: agelong. We live on long after our death, and progressively, in progressive devolution.'
