`Which room shall we do first?' she said, turning again to Birkin, with the same gaiety, now she was going to do something with him.

`We'll take them as they come,' he said.

`Should I be getting your teas ready, while you do that?' said the labourer's wife, also gay because she had something to do.

`Would you?' said Hermione, turning to her with the curious motion of intimacy that seemed to envelop the woman, draw her almost to Hermione's breast, and which left the others standing apart. `I should be so glad. Where shall we have it?'

`Where would you like it? Shall it be in here, or out on the grass?'

`Where shall we have tea?' sang Hermione to the company at large.

`On the bank by the pond. And we'll carry the things up, if you'll just get them ready, Mrs Salmon,' said Birkin.

`All right,' said the pleased woman.

The party moved down the passage into the front room. It was empty, but clean and sunny. There was a window looking on to the tangled front garden.

`This is the dining room,' said Hermione. `We'll measure it this way, Rupert -- you go down there --'

`Can't I do it for you,' said Gerald, coming to take the end of the tape.

`No, thank you,' cried Hermione, stooping to the ground in her bluish, brilliant foulard. It was a great joy to her to do things, and to have the ordering of the job, with Birkin. He obeyed her subduedly. Ursula and Gerald looked on. It was a peculiarity of Hermione's, that at every moment, she had one intimate, and turned all the rest of those present into onlookers. This raised her into a state of triumph.

They measured and discussed in the dining-room, and Hermione decided what the floor coverings must be. It sent her into a strange, convulsed anger, to be thwarted. Birkin always let her have her way, for the moment.

Then they moved across, through the hall, to the other front room, that was a little smaller than the first.

`This is the study,' said Hermione. `Rupert, I have a rug that I want you to have for here. Will you let me give it to you? Do -- I want to give it you.'

`What is it like?' he asked ungraciously.

`You haven't seen it. It is chiefly rose red, then blue, a metallic, mid-blue, and a very soft dark blue. I think you would like it. Do you think you would?'

`It sounds very nice,' he replied. `What is it? Oriental? With a pile?'

`Yes. Persian! It is made of camel's hair, silky. I think it is called Bergamos -- twelve feet by seven --. Do you think it will do?'

`It would do,' he said. `But why should you give me an expensive rug? I can manage perfectly well with my old Oxford Turkish.'

`But may I give it to you? Do let me.'


  By PanEris using Melati.

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