Page:Women in Love, Lawrence, 1920.djvu/66

58 "Something like that," said Gerald.

Birkin watched him narrowly. He saw the perfect good-humoured callousness, even strange, glistening malice, in Gerald, glistening through the plausible ethics of productivity.

"Gerald," he said, "I rather hate you."

"I know you do," said Gerald. "Why do you?"

Birkin mused inscrutably for some minutes.

"I should like to know if you are conscious of hating me," he said at last. "Do you ever consciously detest me—hate me with mystic hate? There are odd moments when I hate you starrily."

Gerald was rather taken aback, even a little disconcerted.

He did not quite know what to say.

"I may, of course, hate you sometimes," he said. "But

I'm not aware of it—never acutely aware of it, that is."

"So much the worse," said Birkin.

Gerald watched him with curious eyes. He could not quite make him out.

"So much the worse, is it?" he repeated.

There was a silence between the two men for some time, as the train ran on. In Birkin's face was a little irritable tension, a sharp knitting of the brows, keen and difficult.

Gerald watched him warily, carefully, rather calculatingly, for he could not decide what he was after.

Suddenly Birkin's eyes looked straight and overpowering into those of the other man.

"What do you think is the aim and object of your life, Gerald?" he asked.

Again Gerald was taken aback. He could not think what his friend was getting at. Was he poking fun, or not?

"At this moment, I couldn't say off-hand," he replied, with faintly ironic humour.

"Do you think love is the be-all and the end-all of life?" Birkin asked, with direct, attentive seriousness.

"Of my own life?" said Gerald.

"Yes."

There was a really puzzled pause.

"I can't say," said Gerald. "It hasn't been, so far."