moved uneasily on his feet, and did not finish.

‘You mean if you knew the alternative?’ asked Birkin. ‘And since you don’t know it, marriage is a PIS ALLER.’

Gerald looked up at Birkin with the same hot, constrained eyes.

‘One does have the feeling that marriage is a PIS ALLER,’ he admitted.

‘Then don’t do it,’ said Birkin. ‘I tell you,’ he went on, ‘the same as I’ve said before, marriage in the old sense seems to me repulsive. EGOISME A DEUX is nothing to it. It’s a sort of tacit hunting in couples: the world all in couples, each couple in its own little house, watching its own little interests, and stewing in its own little privacy —