She seemed to return again into his consciousness.
Gerald came down wearing a gown of broad-barred, thick black-and-green silk, brilliant and striking.
'You are very fine,' said Birkin, looking at the full robe.
'It was a caftan in Bokhara,' said Gerald. 'I like it.'
'I like it too.'
Birkin was silent, thinking how scrupulous Gerald was in his attire, how expensive too.
He wore silk socks, and studs of fine workmanship, and silk underclothing, and silk braces.
Curious!
This was another of the differences between them.
Birkin was careless and unimaginative about his own appearance.
'Of course you,' said Gerald, as if he had been thinking; 'there's something curious about you.
You're curiously strong.
One doesn't expect it, it is rather surprising.'
Birkin laughed.
He was looking at the handsome figure of the other man, blond and comely in the rich robe, and he was half thinking of the difference between it and himself—so different; as far, perhaps, apart as man from woman, yet in another direction.
But really it was Ursula, it was the woman who was gaining ascendance over Birkin's being, at this moment.
Gerald was becoming dim again, lapsing out of him.
'Do you know,' he said suddenly, 'I went and proposed to Ursula Brangwen tonight, that she should marry me.'
He saw the blank shining wonder come over Gerald's face.
'You did?'
'Yes.
Almost formally—speaking first to her father, as it should be, in the world—though that was accident—or mischief.'
Gerald only stared in wonder, as if he did not grasp.
'You don't mean to say that you seriously went and asked her father to let you marry her?'
'Yes,' said Birkin, 'I did.'
'What, had you spoken to her before about it, then?'
'No, not a word.
I suddenly thought I would go there and ask her—and her father happened to come instead of her—so I asked him first.'
'If you could have her?' concluded Gerald.
'Ye-es, that.'
'And you didn't speak to her?'
'Yes.
She came in afterwards.
So it was put to her as well.'
'It was!
And what did she say then?
You're an engaged man?'
'No,—she only said she didn't want to be bullied into answering.'
'She what?'
'Said she didn't want to be bullied into answering.'
'"Said she didn't want to be bullied into answering!"
Why, what did she mean by that?'
Birkin raised his shoulders.
'Can't say,' he answered. 'Didn't want to be bothered just then, I suppose.'
'But is this really so?
And what did you do then?'
'I walked out of the house and came here.'
'You came straight here?'
'Yes.'
Gerald stared in amazement and amusement.