So Connie watched him fixedly. And the same solitary aloneness she had seen in him naked, she now saw in him clothed: solitary, and intent, like an animal that works alone, but also brooding, like a soul that recoils away, away from all human contact. Silently, patiently, he was recoiling away from her even now. It was the stillness, and the timeless sort of patience, in a man impatient and passionate, that touched Connie's womb. She saw it in his bent head, the quick quiet hands, the crouching of his slender, sensitive loins; something patient and withdrawn. She felt his experience had been deeper and wider than her own; much deeper and wider, and perhaps more deadly. And this relieved her of herself; she felt almost irresponsible.

So she sat in the doorway of the hut in a dream, utterly unaware of time and of particular circumstances. She was so drifted away that he glanced up at her quickly, and saw the utterly still, waiting look on her face. To him it was a look of waiting. And a little thin tongue of fire suddenly flickered in his loins, at the root of his back, and he groaned in spirit. He dreaded with a repulsion almost of death, any further close human contact. He wished above all things she would go away, and leave him to his own privacy. He dreaded her will, her female will, and her modern female insistency. And above all he dreaded her cool, upper-class impudence of having her own way. For after all he was only a hired man. He hated her presence there.

Connie came to herself with sudden uneasiness. She rose. The afternoon was turning to evening, yet she could not go away. She went over to the man, who stood up at attention, his worn face stiff and blank, his eyes watching her.

`It is so nice here, so restful,' she said. `I have never been here before.'

`No?'

`I think I shall come and sit here sometimes.

`Yes?'

`Do you lock the hut when you're not here?'

`Yes, your Ladyship.'

`Do you think I could have a key too, so that I could sit here sometimes? Are there two keys?'

`Not as Ah know on, ther' isna.'

He had lapsed into the vernacular. Connie hesitated; he was putting up an opposition. Was it his hut, after all?

`Couldn't we get another key?' she asked in her soft voice, that underneath had the ring of a woman determined to get her way.

`Another!' he said, glancing at her with a flash of anger, touched with derision.

`Yes, a duplicate,' she said, flushing.

`'Appen Sir Clifford 'ud know,' he said, putting her off.

`Yes!' she said, `he might have another. Otherwise we could have one made from the one you have. It would only take a day or so, I suppose. You could spare your key for so long.'

`Ah canna tell yer, m'Lady! Ah know nob'dy as ma'es keys round 'ere.'

Connie suddenly flushed with anger.

`Very well!' she said. `I'll see to it.'

`All right, your Ladyship.'

Their eyes met. His had a cold, ugly look of dislike and contempt, and indifference to what would happen. Hers were hot with rebuff.

But her heart sank, she saw how utterly he disliked her, when she went against him. And she saw him in a sort of desperation.

`Good afternoon!'

`Afternoon, my Lady!' He saluted and turned abruptly away. She had wakened the sleeping dogs of old voracious anger in him, anger against the self-willed female. And he was powerless, powerless. He knew it!

And she was angry against the self-willed male. A servant too! She walked sullenly home.

She found Mrs Bolton under the great beech-tree on the knoll, looking for her.

`I just wondered if you'd be coming, my Lady,' the woman said brightly.

`Am I late?' asked Connie.

`Oh only Sir Clifford was waiting for his tea.'

`Why didn't you make it then?'

`Oh, I don't think it's hardly my place. I don't think Sir Clifford would like it at all, my Lady.'

`I don't see why not,' said Connie.

She went indoors to Clifford's study, where the old brass kettle was simmering on the tray.

`Am I late, Clifford?' she said, putting down the few flowers and taking up the tea-caddy, as she stood before the tray in her hat and scarf. `I'm sorry! Why didn't you let Mrs Bolton make the tea?'

`I didn't think of it,' he said ironically. `I don't quite see her presiding at the tea-table.'

`Oh, there's nothing sacrosanct about a silver tea-pot,' said Connie.

He glanced up at her curiously.

`What did you do all afternoon?' he said.

`Walked and sat in a sheltered place. Do you know there are still berries on the big holly-tree?'

She took off her scarf, but not her hat, and sat down to make tea. The toast would certainly be leathery. She put the tea-cosy over the tea-pot, and rose to get a little glass for her violets. The poor flowers hung over, limp on their stalks.

`They'll revive again!' she said, putting them before him in their glass for him to smell.

`Sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes,' he quoted.

`I don't see a bit of connexion with the actual violets,' she said. `The Elizabethans are rather upholstered.'

She poured him his tea.

`Do you think there is a second key to that little hut not far from John's Well, where the pheasants are reared?' she said.

`There may be. Why?'

`I happened to find it today--and I'd never seen it before. I think it's a darling place. I could sit there sometimes, couldn't I?'

`Was Mellors there?'

`Yes! That's how I found it: his hammering. He didn't seem to like my intruding at all. In fact he was almost rude when I asked about a second key.'

`What did he say?'

`Oh, nothing: just his manner; and he said he knew nothing about keys.'

`There may be one in Father's study. Betts knows them all, they're all there. I'll get him to look.'

`Oh do!' she said.

`So Mellors was almost rude?'

`Oh, nothing, really! But I don't think he wanted me to have the freedom of the castle, quite.'

`I don't suppose he did.'

`Still, I don't see why he should mind. It's not his home, after all! It's not his private abode. I don't see why I shouldn't sit there if I want to.'

`Quite!' said Clifford. `He thinks too much of himself, that man.'

`Do you think he does?'

`Oh, decidedly! He thinks he's something exceptional. You know he had a wife he didn't get on with, so he joined up in 1915 and was sent to India, I believe. Anyhow he was blacksmith to the cavalry in Egypt for a time; always was connected with horses, a clever fellow that way. Then some Indian colonel took a fancy to him, and he was made a lieutenant. Yes, they gave him a commission. I believe he went back to India with his colonel, and up to the north-west frontier. He was ill; he was a pension. He didn't come out of the army till last year, I believe, and then, naturally, it isn't easy for a man like that to get back to his own level. He's bound to flounder. But he does his duty all right, as far as I'm concerned. Only I'm not having any of the Lieutenant Mellors touch.'

`How could they make him an officer when he speaks broad Derbyshire?'

`He doesn't...except by fits and starts. He can speak perfectly well, for him. I suppose he has an idea if he's come down to the ranks again, he'd better speak as the ranks speak.'

`Why didn't you tell me about him before?'

`Oh, I've no patience with these romances. They're the ruin of all order. It's a thousand pities they ever happened.'

Connie was inclined to agree. What was the good of discontented people who fitted in nowhere?

In the spell of fine weather Clifford, too, decided to go to the wood. The wind was cold, but not so tiresome, and the sunshine was like life itself, warm and full.

`It's amazing,' said Connie, `how different one feels when there's a really fresh fine day. Usually one feels the very air is half dead. People are killing the very air.'

`Do you think people are doing it?' he asked.

`I do. The steam of so much boredom, and discontent and anger out of all the people, just kills the vitality in the air. I'm sure of it.'

`Perhaps some condition of the atmosphere lowers the vitality of the people?' he said.

`No, it's man that poisons the universe,' she asserted.

`Fouls his own nest,' remarked Clifford.

The chair puffed on. In the hazel copse catkins were hanging pale gold, and in sunny places the wood-anemones were wide open, as if exclaiming with the joy of life, just as good as in past days, when people could exclaim along with them. They had a faint scent of apple-blossom. Connie gathered a few for Clifford.

He took them and looked at them curiously.

`Thou still unravished bride of quietness,' he quoted. `It seems to fit flowers so much better than Greek vases.'

`Ravished is such a horrid word!' she said. `It's only people who ravish things.'

`Oh, I don't know...snails and things,' he said.

`Even snails only eat them, and bees don't ravish.'

She was angry with him, turning everything into words. Violets were Juno's eyelids, and windflowers were on ravished brides. How she hated words, always coming between her and life: they did the ravishing, if anything did: ready-made words and phrases, sucking all the life-sap out of living things.

The walk with Clifford was not quite a success. Between him and Connie there was a tension that each pretended not to notice, but there it was. Suddenly, with all the force of her female instinct, she was shoving him off. She wanted to be clear of him, and especially of his consciousness, his words, his obsession with himself, his endless treadmill obsession with himself, and his own words.

The weather came rainy again. But after a day or two she went out in the rain, and she went to the wood. And once there, she went towards the hut. It was raining, but not so cold, and the wood felt so silent and remote, inaccessible in the dusk of rain.

She came to the clearing. No one there! The hut was locked. But she sat on the log doorstep, under the rustic porch, and snuggled into her own warmth. So she sat, looking at the rain, listening to the many noiseless noises of it, and to the strange soughings of wind in upper branches, when there seemed to be no wind. Old oak-trees stood around, grey, powerful trunks, rain-blackened, round and vital, throwing off reckless limbs. The ground was fairly free of undergrowth, the anemones sprinkled, there was a bush or two, elder, or guelder-rose, and a purplish tangle of bramble: the old russet of bracken almost vanished under green anemone ruffs. Perhaps this was one of the unravished places. Unravished! The whole world was ravished.