‘It is?’

He leaned back in his chair, filled with delight and amusement.

‘Well, that’s good,’ he said. ‘And so you came here to wrestle with your good angel, did you?’

‘Did I?’ said Birkin.

‘Well, it looks like it. Isn’t that what you did?’

Now Birkin could not follow Gerald’s meaning.

‘And what’s going to happen?’ said Gerald. ‘You’re going to keep open the proposition, so to speak?’

‘I suppose so. I vowed to myself I would see them all to the devil. But I suppose I shall ask her again, in a little while.’