her,
there must be pure separation between them.

It was a quiet and ordinary breakfast, the four men all looking very
clean and bathed. Gerald and the Russian were both correct and COMME IL
FAUT in appearance and manner, Birkin was gaunt and sick, and looked a
failure in his attempt to be a properly dressed man, like Gerald and
Maxim. Halliday wore tweeds and a green flannel shirt, and a rag of a
tie, which was just right for him. The Hindu brought in a great deal of
soft toast, and looked exactly the same as he had looked the night
before, statically the same.

At the end of the breakfast the Pussum appeared, in a purple silk wrap
with a shimmering sash. She had recovered herself somewhat, but was
mute and lifeless still. It was a torment to her when anybody spoke to
her. Her face was like a small, fine mask, sinister too, masked with
unwilling suffering. It was almost midday. Gerald rose and went away to
his business, glad to get out. But he had not finished. He was coming
back again at evening, they were all dining together, and he had booked
seats for the party, excepting Birkin, at a music-hall.

At night they came back to the flat very late again, again flushed with
drink. Again the man-servant--who invariably disappeared between the
hours of ten and twelve at night--came in silently and inscrutably with
tea, bending in a slow, strange, leopard-like fashion to put the tray
softly on the table. His face was immutable, aristocratic-looking,
tinged slightly with grey under the skin; he was young and
good-looking. But Birkin felt a slight sickness, looking at him, and
feeling the slight greyness as an ash or a corruption, in the
aristocratic inscrutability of expression a nauseating, bestial
stupidity.

Again they talked cordially and rousedly together. But already a
certain friability was coming over the party, Birkin was mad with
irritation, Halliday was turning in an insane hatred against Gerald,
the Pussum was becoming hard and cold, like a flint knife, and Halliday
was laying himself out to her. And her intention, ultimately, was to
capture Halliday, to have complete power over him.

In the morning they all stalked and lounged about again. But Gerald
could feel a strange hostility to himself, in the air. It roused his
obstinacy, and he stood up against it. He hung on for two more days.
The result was a nasty and insane scene with Halliday on the fourth
evening. Halliday turned with absurd animosity upon Ge