Yet her voice had the same defensive brightness as she spoke to
Birkin's landlady at the door.
'Good evening! Is Mr Birkin in? Can I see him?' 'Yes, he's in. He's in his study.' Ursula slipped past the woman. His door opened. He had heard her voice.
'Hello!' he exclaimed in surprise, seeing her standing there with the
valise in her hand, and marks of tears on her face. She was one who
wept without showing many traces, like a child.
'Do I look a sight?' she said, shrinking.
'No--why? Come in,' he took the bag from her hand and they went into
the study.
There--immediately, her lips began to tremble like those of a child
that remembers again, and the tears came rushing up.
'What's the matter?' he asked, taking her in his arms. She sobbed
violently on his shoulder, whilst he held her still, waiting.
'What's the matter?' he said again, when she was quieter. But she only
pressed her face further into his shoulder, in pain, like a child that
cannot tell.
'What is it, then?' he asked. Suddenly she broke away, wiped her eyes,
regained her composure, and went and sat in a chair.
'Father hit me,' she announced, sitting bunched up, rather like a
ruffled bird, her eyes very bright.
'What for?' he said.
She looked away, and would not answer. There was a pitiful redness
about her sensitive nostrils, and her quivering lips.
'Why?' he repeated, in his strange, soft, penetrating voice.
She looked round at him, rather defiantly.
'Because I said I was going to be married tomorrow, and he bullied me.' 'Why did he bully you?' Her mouth dropped again, she remembered the scene once more, the tears
came up.
'Because I said he didn't care--and he doesn't, it's only his
domineeringness that's hurt--' she said, her mouth pulled awry by her
weeping, all the time she spoke, so that he almost smiled, it seemed so
childish. Yet it was not childish, it was a mortal conflict, a deep
wound.
'It isn't quite true,' he said. 'And even so, you shouldn't SAY it.' 'It IS true--it IS true,' she wept, 'and I won't be bullied by his
pretending it's love--when it ISN'T--he doesn't care, how can he--no,
he can't-' He sat in silence. She moved him beyond himself.
'Then you shouldn't rouse him, if he can't,' replied Birkin quietly.
'And I HAVE loved him, I have,' she wept. 'I've loved him always, and
he's always done this to me, he has--' 'It's been a love of opposition, then,' he said. 'Never mind--it will
be all right. It's nothing desperate.' 'Yes,' she wept, 'it is, it is.' 'Why?' 'I shall never see him again--' 'Not immediately. Don't cry, you had to break with him, it had to
be--don't cry.' He went over to her and kissed her fine, fragile hair, touching her wet
cheeks gently.