“I’m so glad you are. Sometimes,” said Hermione, again stopping arrested in her progress and turning to Ursula, “sometimes I wonder if I ought to submit to all this realisation, if I am not being weak in rejecting it. But I feel I can’t—I can’t. It seems to destroy everything. All the beauty and the—and the true holiness is destroyed—and I feel I can’t live without them.”
“And it would be simply wrong to live without them,” cried Ursula. “No, it is so irreverent to think that everything must be realised in the head. Really, something must be left to the Lord, there always is and always will be.”
“Yes,” said Hermione, reassured like a child, “it should, shouldn’t it? And Rupert—” she lifted her face to the sky, in a muse—“he can only tear things to pieces. He really is like a boy who must pull everything to pieces to see how it is made. And I can’t think it is right—it does seem so irreverent, as you say.”
“Like tearing open a bud to see what the flower will be like,” said Ursula.
“Yes. And that kills everything, doesn’t it? It doesn’t allow any possibility of flowering.”
“Of course not,” said Ursula. “It is purely destructive.”
“It is, isn’t it!”
Hermione looked long and slow at Ursula, seeming to accept confirmation from her. Then the two women were silent. As soon as they were in accord, they began mutually to mistrust each other. In spite of herself, Ursula felt herself recoiling from Hermione. It was all she could do to restrain her revulsion.
They returned to the men, like two conspirators who have withdrawn to come to an agreement. Birkin looked up at them. Ursula hated him for his cold watchfulness. But he said nothing.
“Shall we be going?” said Hermione. “Rupert, you are coming to Shortlands to dinner? Will you come at once, will you come now, with us?”