'Who'll hear us say our prayers?' asked Billy anxiously.
'Whom you like.'
'Won't you?'
'Yes, I will.'
'Ursula?'
'Well Billy?'
'Is it WHOM you like?'
'That's it.'
'Well what is WHOM?'
'It's the accusative of who.'
There was a moment's contemplative silence, then the confiding:
'Is it?'
Birkin smiled to himself as he sat by the fire.
When Ursula came down he sat motionless, with his arms on his knees.
She saw him, how he was motionless and ageless, like some crouching idol, some image of a deathly religion.
He looked round at her, and his face, very pale and unreal, seemed to gleam with a whiteness almost phosphorescent.
'Don't you feel well?' she asked, in indefinable repulsion.
'I hadn't thought about it.'
'But don't you know without thinking about it?'
He looked at her, his eyes dark and swift, and he saw her revulsion.
He did not answer her question.
'Don't you know whether you are unwell or not, without thinking about it?' she persisted.
'Not always,' he said coldly.
'But don't you think that's very wicked?'
'Wicked?'
'Yes.
I think it's CRIMINAL to have so little connection with your own body that you don't even know when you are ill.'
He looked at her darkly.
'Yes,' he said.
'Why don't you stay in bed when you are seedy?
You look perfectly ghastly.'
'Offensively so?' he asked ironically.
'Yes, quite offensive.
Quite repelling.'
'Ah!!
Well that's unfortunate.'
'And it's raining, and it's a horrible night.
Really, you shouldn't be forgiven for treating your body like it—you OUGHT to suffer, a man who takes as little notice of his body as that.'
'—takes as little notice of his body as that,' he echoed mechanically.
This cut her short, and there was silence.
The others came in from church, and the two had the girls to face, then the mother and Gudrun, and then the father and the boy.
'Good-evening,' said Brangwen, faintly surprised. 'Came to see me, did you?'
'No,' said Birkin, 'not about anything, in particular, that is.
The day was dismal, and I thought you wouldn't mind if I called in.'
'It HAS been a depressing day,' said Mrs Brangwen sympathetically.
At that moment the voices of the children were heard calling from upstairs:
'Mother!
Mother!'
She lifted her face and answered mildly into the distance:
'I shall come up to you in a minute, Doysie.'