‘Yes, one woman,’ said Birkin.

But to Gerald it sounded as if he were insistent rather than confident.

‘I don’t believe a woman, and nothing but a woman, will ever make my life,’ said Gerald.

‘Not the centre and core of it — the love between you and a woman?’ asked Birkin.

Gerald’s eyes narrowed with a queer dangerous smile as he watched the other man.

‘I never quite feel it that way,’ he said.

‘You don’t? Then wherein does life centre, for you?’

‘I don’t know — that’s what I want somebody to tell me. As far as I can make out, it doesn’t