Gudrun watched him as if in a hypnotic state, her eyes wide and fixed on him.

`But in what way do you mean, disappear? --' she persisted.

`Yes, do you mean a change of heart?' put in Gerald.

`I don't mean anything, why should I?' said Birkin. `I'm an Englishman, and I've paid the price of it. I can't talk about England -- I can only speak for myself.'

`Yes,' said Gudrun slowly, `you love England immensely, immensely, Rupert.'

`And leave her,' he replied.

`No, not for good. You'll come back,' said Gerald, nodding sagely.

`They say the lice crawl off a dying body,' said Birkin, with a glare of bitterness. `So I leave England.'

`Ah, but you'll come back,' said Gudrun, with a sardonic smile.

`Tant pis pour moi,' he replied.

`Isn't he angry with his mother country!' laughed Gerald, amused.

`Ah, a patriot!' said Gudrun, with something like a sneer.

Birkin refused to answer any more.

Gudrun watched him still for a few seconds. Then she turned away. It was finished, her spell of divination in him. She felt already purely cynical. She looked at Gerald. He was wonderful like a piece of radium to her. She felt she could consume herself and know all, by means of this fatal, living metal. She smiled to herself at her fancy. And what would she do with herself, when she had destroyed herself? For if spirit, if integral being is destructible, Matter is indestructible.

He was looking bright and abstracted, puzzled, for the moment. She stretched out her beautiful arm, with its fluff of green tulle, and touched his chin with her subtle, artist's fingers.

`What are they then?' she asked, with a strange, knowing smile.

`What?' he replied, his eyes suddenly dilating with wonder.

`Your thoughts.'

Gerald looked like a man coming awake.

`I think I had none,' he said.

`Really!' she said, with grave laughter in her voice.

And to Birkin it was as if she killed Gerald, with that touch.

`Ah but,' cried Gudrun, `let us drink to Britannia -- let us drink to Britannia.'

It seemed there was wild despair in her voice. Gerald laughed, and filled the glasses.

`I think Rupert means,' he said, `that nationally all Englishmen must die, so that they can exist individually and -- '