also looked now at the country. And Birkin, who, for some reason was now tired and dispirited, said to him:

‘I always feel doomed when the train is running into London. I feel such a despair, so hopeless, as if it were the end of the world.’

‘Really!’ said Gerald. ‘And does the end of the world frighten you?’

Birkin lifted his shoulders in a slow shrug.

‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘It does while it hangs imminent and doesn’t fall. But people give me a bad feeling — very bad.’

There was a roused glad smile in Gerald’s eyes.

‘Do they?’ he said. And he watched the other man critically.