“Finally—finally—no,” said Birkin.
“Nor I,” said Gerald.
“And do you want to?” said Birkin.
Gerald looked with a long, twinkling, almost sardonic look into the eyes of the other man.
“I don’t know,” he said.
“I do—I want to love,” said Birkin.
“You do?”
“Yes. I want the finality of love.”
“The finality of love,” repeated Gerald. And he waited for a moment.
“Just one woman?” he added. The evening light, flooding yellow along the fields, lit up Birkin’s face with a tense, abstract steadfastness. Gerald still could not make it out.