'
'You came straight here?'
'Yes.'
Gerald stared in amazement and amusement. He could not take it in.
'But is this really true, as you say it now?'
'Word for word.'
'It is?'
He leaned back in his chair, filled with delight and amusement.
'Well, that's good,' he said. 'And so you came here to wrestle with
your good angel, did you?'
'Did I?' said Birkin.
'Well, it looks like it. Isn't that what you did?'
Now Birkin could not follow Gerald's meaning.
'And what's going to happen?' said Gerald. 'You're going to keep open
the proposition, so to speak?'
'I suppose so. I vowed to myself I would see them all to the devil. But
I suppose I shall ask her again, in a little while.'
Gerald watched him steadily.
'So you're fond of her then?' he asked.
'I think--I love her,' said Birkin, his face going very still and
fixed.
Gerald glistened for a moment with pleasure, as if it were something
done specially to please him. Then his face assumed a fitting gravity,
and he nodded his head slowly.
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