“To give you a chair—that—with the label on it,” he said, pointing.
The man looked at the object indicated. There was a curious hostility in male, outlawed understanding between the two men.
“What’s she warnt to give it us for, guvnor,” he replied, in a tone of free intimacy that insulted Ursula.
“Thought you’d like it—it’s a pretty chair. We bought it and don’t want it. No need for you to have it, don’t be frightened,” said Birkin, with a wry smile.
The man glanced up at him, half inimical, half recognising.
“Why don’t you want it for yourselves, if you’ve just bought it?” asked the woman coolly. “ ’Taint good enough for you, now you’ve had a look at it. Frightened it’s got something in it, eh?”
She was looking at Ursula, admiringly, but with some resentment.
“I’d never thought of that,” said Birkin. “But no, the wood’s too thin everywhere.”
“You see,” said Ursula, her face luminous and pleased. “We are just going to get married, and we thought we’d buy things. Then we decided, just now, that we wouldn’t have furniture, we’d go abroad.”
The full-built, slightly blowsy city girl looked at the fine face of the other woman, with appreciation. They appreciated each other. The youth stood aside, his face expressionless and timeless, the thin line of the black moustache drawn strangely suggestive over his rather wide, closed mouth. He was impassive, abstract, like some dark suggestive presence, a gutter-presence.
“It’s all right to be some folks,” said the city girl, turning to her own young man. He did not look at her, but he smiled with the lower part of his face, putting his head aside in an odd gesture of assent. His eyes were unchanging, glazed with darkness.
“Cawsts something to chynge your mind,” he said, in an incredibly low accent.
“Only ten shillings this time,” said Birkin.
The man looked up at him with a grimace of a smile, furtive, unsure.
“Cheap at ’arf a quid, guvnor,” he said. “Not like getting divawced.”
“We’re not married yet,” said Birkin.
“No, no more aren’t we,” said the young woman loudly. “But we shall be, a Saturday.”
Again she looked at the young man with a determined, protective look, at once overbearing and very gentle. He grinned sicklily, turning away his head. She had got his manhood, but Lord, what did he care! He had a strange furtive pride and slinking singleness.
“Good luck to you,” said Birkin.
“Same to you,” said the young woman. Then, rather tentatively: “When’s yours coming off, then?”
Birkin looked round at Ursula.
“It’s for the lady to say,” he replied. “We go to the registrar the moment she’s ready.”
Ursula laughed, covered with confusion and bewilderment.
“No ’urry,” said the young man, grinning suggestive.
“Oh, don’t break your neck to get there,” said the young woman. “ ’Slike when you’re dead—you’re long time married.”
The young man turned aside as if this hit him.
“The longer the better, let us hope,” said Birkin.
“That’s it, guvnor,” said the young man admiringly. “Enjoy it while it larsts—niver whip a dead donkey.”
“Only when he’s shamming dead,” said the young woman, looking at her young man with caressive tenderness of authority.
“Aw, there’s a difference,” he said satirically.
“What about the chair?” said Birkin.
“Yes, all right,” said the woman.
They trailed off to the dealer, the handsome but abject young fellow hanging a little aside.
“That’s it,” said Birkin. “Will you take it with you, or have the address altered.”
“Oh, Fred can carry it. Make him do what he can for the dear old ’ome.”
“Mike use of ’im,” said Fred, grimly humorous, as he took the chair from the dealer. His movements were graceful, yet curiously abject, slinking.
“ ’Ere’s mother’s cosy chair,” he said. “Warnts a cushion.” And he stood it down on the market stones.
“Don’t you think it’s pretty?” laughed Ursula.
“Oh, I do,” said the young woman.
“ ’Ave a sit in it, you’ll wish you’d kept it,” said the young man.
Ursula promptly sat down in the middle of the marketplace.
“Awfully comfortable,” she said. “But rather hard. You try it.” She invited the young man to a seat. But he turned uncouthly, awkwardly aside, glancing up at her with quick bright eyes, oddly suggestive, like a quick, live rat.
“Don’t spoil him,” said the young woman. “He’s not used to armchairs, ’e isn’t.”
The young man turned away, and said, with averted grin:
“Only warnts legs on ’is.”
The four parted. The young woman thanked them.
“Thank you for the chair—it’ll last till it gives way.”
“Keep it for an ornyment,” said the young man.
“Good afternoon—good afternoon,” said Ursula and Birkin.
“Goo’-luck to you,” said the young man, glancing and avoiding Birkin’s eyes, as he turned aside his head.
The two couples went asunder, Ursula clinging to Birkin’s arm. When they had gone some distance, she glanced back and saw the young man going beside the full, easy young woman. His trousers sank over his heels, he moved with a sort of slinking evasion, more crushed with odd self-consciousness now he had the slim old armchair to carry, his arm over the back, the four fine, square tapering legs swaying perilously near the granite setts of the pavement. And yet he was somewhere indomitable and separate, like a quick, vital rat. He had a queer, subterranean beauty, repulsive too.
“How strange they are!” said Ursula.
“Children of men,” he said. “They remind me of Jesus: ‘The meek shall inherit the earth.’ ”
“But they aren’t the meek,” said Ursula.
“Yes, I don’t know why, but they are,” he replied.
They waited for the tramcar. Ursula sat on top and looked out on the town. The dusk was just dimming the hollows of crowded houses.
“And are they going to inherit the earth?” she said.
“Yes—they.”
“Then what are we going to do?” she asked. “We’re not like them—are we? We’re not the meek?”
“No. We’ve got to live in the chinks they leave us.”
“How horrible!” cried Ursula. “I don’t want to live in chinks.”
“Don’t worry,” he said. “They are the children of men, they like marketplaces and street-corners best. That leaves plenty of chinks.”
“All the world,” she said.
“Ah no—but some room.”
The tramcar mounted slowly up the hill,
