“If one repents being married, the marriage is at an end,” said Birkin.

“You think so?”

“Yes.”

“Ay, well that may be your way of looking at it.”

Birkin, in silence, thought to himself: “So it may. As for your way of looking at it, William Brangwen, it needs a little explaining.”

“I suppose,” said Brangwen, “you know what sort of people we are? What sort of a bringing-up she’s had?”

“‘She’,” thought Birkin to himself, remembering his childhood’s corrections, “is the cat’s mother.”

“Do I know what sort of a bringing-up she’s had?” he said aloud.

He seemed to annoy Brangwen intentionally.

“Well,” he said, “she’s had everything that’s right for a girl to have—as far as possible, as far as we could give it her.”