Gudrun flushed darkly.
`You mean with Ursula?' she said, in challenge.
`Yes. That is so, isn't it?'
`I don't think there's any engagement,' said Gudrun, coldly.
`That so? Still no developments, Rupert?' he called.
`Where? Matrimonial? No.'
`How's that?' called Gudrun.
Birkin glanced quickly round. There was irritation in his eyes also.
`Why?' he replied. `What do you think of it, Gudrun?'
`Oh,' she cried, determined to fling her stone also into the pool, since they had begun, `I don't think she wants an engagement. Naturally, she's a bird that prefers the bush.' Gudrun's voice was clear and gong- like. It reminded Rupert of her father's, so strong and vibrant.
`And I,' said Birkin, his face playful but yet determined, `I want a binding contract, and am not keen on love, particularly free love.'
They were both amused. Why this public avowal? Gerald seemed suspended a moment, in amusement.
`Love isn't good enough for you?' he called.
`No!' shouted Birkin.
`Ha, well that's being over-refined,' said Gerald, and the car ran through the mud.
`What's the matter, really?' said Gerald, turning to Gudrun.
This was an assumption of a sort of intimacy that irritated Gudrun almost like an affront. It seemed to her that Gerald was deliberately insulting her, and infringing on the decent privacy of them all.
`What is it?' she said, in her high, repellent voice. `Don't ask me! -- I know nothing about ultimate marriage, I assure you: or even penultimate.'
`Only the ordinary unwarrantable brand!' replied Gerald. `Just so -- same here. I am no expert on marriage, and degrees of ultimateness. It seems to be a bee that buzzes loudly in Rupert's bonnet.'
`Exactly! But that is his trouble, exactly! Instead of wanting a woman for herself, he wants his ideas fulfilled. Which, when it comes to actual practice, is not good enough.'
`Oh no. Best go slap for what's womanly in woman, like a bull at a gate.' Then he seemed to glimmer in himself. `You think love is the ticket, do you?' he asked.
`Certainly, while it lasts -- you only can't insist on permanency,' came Gudrun's voice, strident above the noise.
`Marriage or no marriage, ultimate or penultimate or just so-so? -- take the love as you find it.'
`As you please, or as you don't please,' she echoed. `Marriage is a social arrangement, I take it, and has nothing to do with the question of love.'