‘Nor I,’ said Gerald.

‘And do you want to?’ said Birkin.

Gerald looked with a long, twinkling, almost sardonic look into the eyes of the other man.

‘I don’t know,’ he said.

‘I do — I want to love,’ said Birkin.

‘You do?’

‘Yes. I want the finality of love.’

‘The finality of love,’ repeated Gerald. And he waited for a moment.

‘Just one woman?’ he added. The evening light, flooding yellow along the fields, lit up Birkin’s face with a tense, abstract steadfastness. Gerald still could not make it out.