'I don't agree, Rupert,' said Hermione.

'All right,' said Birkin.

'I'm all for the old national hat,' laughed Gerald.

'And a fool you look in it,' cried Diana, his pert sister who was just
in her teens.

'Oh, we're quite out of our depths with these old hats,' cried Laura
Crich. 'Dry up now, Gerald. We're going to drink toasts. Let us drink
toasts. Toasts--glasses, glasses--now then, toasts! Speech! Speech!'

Birkin, thinking about race or national death, watched his glass being
filled with champagne. The bubbles broke at the rim, the man withdrew,
and feeling a sudden thirst at the sight of the fresh wine, Birkin
drank up his glass. A queer little tension in the room roused him. He
felt a sharp constraint.

'Did I do it by accident, or on purpose?' he asked himself. And he
decided that, according to the vulgar phrase, he had done it
'accidentally on purpose.' He looked round at the hired footman. And
the hired footman came, with a silent step of cold servant-like
disapprobation. Birkin decided that he detested toasts, and footmen,
and assemblies, and mankind altogether, in most of its aspects. Then he
rose to make a speech. But he was somehow disgusted.

At length it was over, the meal. Several men strolled out into the
garden. There was a lawn, and flower-beds, and at the boundary an iron
fence shutting off the little field or park. The view was pleasant; a