'I promised to meet Halliday at the Pompadour. It's a bad place, but
there is nowhere else.'

'Where is it?' asked Gerald.

'Piccadilly Circus.'

'Oh yes--well, shall I come round there?'

'By all means, it might amuse you.'

The evening was falling. They had passed Bedford. Birkin watched the
country, and was filled with a sort of hopelessness. He always felt
this, on approaching London.

His dislike of mankind, of the mass of mankind, amounted almost to an
illness.

'"Where the quiet coloured end of evening smiles Miles and miles--"' he
was murmuring to himself, like a man condemned to death. Gerald, who
was very subtly alert, wary in all his senses, leaned forward and asked
smilingly:

'What were you saying?' Birkin glanced at him, laughed, and repeated:


'"Where the quiet coloured end of evening smiles, Miles and miles,
Over pastures where the something something sheep Half asleep--"'