‘I should think they were people who hadn’t much restraint,’ said Gudrun.

‘Or too much,’ Birkin answered.

‘Oh yes, I’m sure,’ said Gudrun, almost vindictively, ‘one or the other.’

‘They all feel they ought to behave in some unnatural fashion,’ said Birkin. ‘When people are in grief, they would do better to cover their faces and keep in retirement, as in the old days.’

‘Certainly!’ cried Gudrun, flushed and inflammable. ‘What can be worse than this public grief — what is more horrible, more false! If GRIEF is not private, and hidden, what is?’

‘Exactly,’ he said.