‘I wish she’d come to something different from national consciousness, then,’ said Birkin; ‘especially as it only means a sort of commercial-industrial consciousness. I hate Italy and her national rant. And I think Barnes is an amateur.’

Hermione was silent for some moments, in a state of hostility. But yet, she had got Birkin back again into her world! How subtle her influence was, she seemed to start his irritable attention into her direction exclusively, in one minute. He was her creature.

‘No,’ she said, ‘you are wrong.’ Then a sort of tension came over her, she raised her face like the pythoness inspired with oracles, and went on, in rhapsodic manner: ‘Il Sandro mi scrive che ha accolto il piu grande entusiasmo, tutti i