There was a complete silence, because of the utter failure in mutual understanding. Birkin felt bored. Her father was not a coherent human being, he was a roomful of old echoes. The eyes of the younger man rested on the face of the elder. Brangwen looked up, and saw Birkin looking at him. His face was covered with inarticulate anger and humiliation and sense of inferiority in strength.

‘And as for beliefs, that’s one thing,’ he said. ‘But I’d rather see my daughters dead tomorrow than that they should be at the beck and call of the first man that likes to come and whistle for them.’

A queer painful light came into Birkin’s eyes.

‘As to that,’ he said, ‘I only know that it’s much more likely that it’s