Gerald watched him with curious eyes. He could not quite make him out.

`So much the worse, is it?' he repeated.

There was a silence between the two men for some time, as the train ran on. In Birkin's face was a little irritable tension, a sharp knitting of the brows, keen and difficult. Gerald watched him warily, carefully, rather calculatingly, for he could not decide what he was after.

Suddenly Birkin's eyes looked straight and overpowering into those of the other man.

`What do you think is the aim and object of your life, Gerald?' he asked.

Again Gerald was taken aback. He could not think what his friend was getting at. Was he poking fun, or not?

`At this moment, I couldn't say off-hand,' he replied, with faintly ironic humour.

`Do you think love is the be-all and the end-all of life?' Birkin asked, with direct, attentive seriousness.

`Of my own life?' said Gerald.

`Yes.'

There was a really puzzled pause.

`I can't say,' said Gerald. `It hasn't been, so far.'

`What has your life been, so far?'

`Oh -- finding out things for myself -- and getting experiences -- and making things go.'

Birkin knitted his brows like sharply moulded steel.

`I find,' he said, `that one needs some one really pure single activity -- I should call love a single pure activity. But I don't really love anybody -- not now.'

`Have you ever really loved anybody?' asked Gerald.

`Yes and no,' replied Birkin.

`Not finally?' said Gerald.

`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.'