The eyes of the younger man
rested on the face of the elder. Brangwen looked up, and saw Birkin
looking at him. His face was covered with inarticulate anger and
humiliation and sense of inferiority in strength.
'And as for beliefs, that's one thing,' he said. 'But I'd rather see my
daughters dead tomorrow than that they should be at the beck and call
of the first man that likes to come and whistle for them.'
A queer painful light came into Birkin's eyes.
'As to that,' he said, 'I only know that it's much more likely that
it's I who am at the beck and call of the woman, than she at mine.'
Again there was a pause. The father was somewhat bewildered.
'I know,' he said, 'she'll please herself--she always has done. I've
done my best for them, but that doesn't matter. They've got themselves
to please, and if they can help it they'll please nobody BUT
themselves. But she's a right to consider her mother, and me as well--'
Brangwen was thinking his own thoughts.
'And I tell you this much, I would rather bury them, than see them
getting into a lot of loose ways such as you see everywhere nowadays.
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