‘I suppose,’ said Brangwen, ‘you know what sort of people we are? What sort of a bringing-up she’s had?’

‘“She”,’ thought Birkin to himself, remembering his childhood’s corrections, ‘is the cat’s mother.’

‘Do I know what sort of a bringing-up she’s had?’ he said aloud.

He seemed to annoy Brangwen intentionally.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘she’s had everything that’s right for a girl to have — as far as possible, as far as we could give it her.’

‘I’m sure she has,’ said Birkin, which caused a perilous full-stop. The father was becoming exasperated. There was something naturally irritant to him in Birkin’s