'You do?'

'Yes. I want the finality of love.'

'The finality of love,' repeated Gerald. And he waited for a moment.

'Just one woman?' he added. The evening light, flooding yellow along
the fields, lit up Birkin's face with a tense, abstract steadfastness.
Gerald still could not make it out.

'Yes, one woman,' said Birkin.

But to Gerald it sounded as if he were insistent rather than confident.

'I don't believe a woman, and nothing but a woman, will ever make my
life,' said Gerald.

'Not the centre and core of it--the love between you and a woman?'
asked Birkin.

Gerald's eyes narrowed with a queer dangerous smile as he watched the
other man.

'I never quite feel it that way,' he said.

'You don't? Then wherein does life centre, for you?'

'I don't know--that's what I want somebody to tell me. As far as I can
make out, it doesn't centre at all. It is artificially held TOGETHER by