'You must excuse me, I was just doing a bit of work in the shed.
Come inside, will you.'
Birkin entered and sat down.
He looked at the bright, reddish face of the other man, at the narrow brow and the very bright eyes, and at the rather sensual lips that unrolled wide and expansive under the black cropped moustache.
How curious it was that this was a human being!
What Brangwen thought himself to be, how meaningless it was, confronted with the reality of him.
Birkin could see only a strange, inexplicable, almost patternless collection of passions and desires and suppressions and traditions and mechanical ideas, all cast unfused and disunited into this slender, bright-faced man of nearly fifty, who was as unresolved now as he was at twenty, and as uncreated.
How could he be the parent of Ursula, when he was not created himself.
He was not a parent.
A slip of living flesh had been transmitted through him, but the spirit had not come from him.
The spirit had not come from any ancestor, it had come out of the unknown.
A child is the child of the mystery, or it is uncreated.
'The weather's not so bad as it has been,' said Brangwen, after waiting a moment.
There was no connection between the two men.
'No,' said Birkin. 'It was full moon two days ago.'
'Oh!
You believe in the moon then, affecting the weather?'
'No, I don't think I do.
I don't really know enough about it.'
'You know what they say?
The moon and the weather may change together, but the change of the moon won't change the weather.'
'Is that it?' said Birkin. 'I hadn't heard it.'
There was a pause.
Then Birkin said:
'Am I hindering you?
I called to see Ursula, really.
Is she at home?'
'I don't believe she is.
I believe she's gone to the library.
I'll just see.'
Birkin could hear him enquiring in the dining-room.
'No,' he said, coming back. 'But she won't be long.
You wanted to speak to her?'
Birkin looked across at the other man with curious calm, clear eyes.
'As a matter of fact,' he said, 'I wanted to ask her to marry me.'
A point of light came on the golden-brown eyes of the elder man.
'O-oh?' he said, looking at Birkin, then dropping his eyes before the calm, steadily watching look of the other: 'Was she expecting you then?'
'No,' said Birkin.
'No?
I didn't know anything of this sort was on foot—' Brangwen smiled awkwardly.
Birkin looked back at him, and said to himself:
'I wonder why it should be "on foot"!' Aloud he said:
'No, it's perhaps rather sudden.' At which, thinking of his relationship with Ursula, he added—'but I don't know—'
'Quite sudden, is it?
Oh!' said Brangwen, rather baffled and annoyed.
'In one way,' replied Birkin, '—not in another.'
There was a moment's pause, after which Brangwen said:
'Well, she pleases herself—'
'Oh yes!' said Birkin, calmly.
A vibration came into Brangwen's strong voice, as he replied: