'
Birkin, in silence, thought to himself: 'So it may. As for YOUR way of
looking at it, William Brangwen, it needs a little explaining.'
'I suppose,' said Brangwen, 'you know what sort of people we are? What
sort of a bringing-up she's had?'
'"She",' thought Birkin to himself, remembering his childhood's
corrections, 'is the cat's mother.'
'Do I know what sort of a bringing-up she's had?' he said aloud.
He seemed to annoy Brangwen intentionally.
'Well,' he said, 'she's had everything that's right for a girl to
have--as far as possible, as far as we could give it her.'
'I'm sure she has,' said Birkin, which caused a perilous full-stop. The
father was becoming exasperated. There was something naturally irritant
to him in Birkin's mere presence.
'And I don't want to see her going back on it all,' he said, in a
clanging voice.
'Why?' said Birkin.
This monosyllable exploded in Brangwen's brain like a shot.
'Why! I don't believe in your new-fangled ways and new-fangled
ideas--in and out like a frog in a gallipot.
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