All this time Gerald had been completely ignored. And yet he felt that
the girl was physically aware of his proximity. He waited, listened,
and tried to piece together the conversation.

'Are you staying at the flat?' the girl asked, of Birkin.

'For three days,' replied Birkin. 'And you?'

'I don't know yet. I can always go to Bertha's.' There was a silence.

Suddenly the girl turned to Gerald, and said, in a rather formal,
polite voice, with the distant manner of a woman who accepts her
position as a social inferior, yet assumes intimate CAMARADERIE with
the male she addresses:

'Do you know London well?'

'I can hardly say,' he laughed. 'I've been up a good many times, but I
was never in this place before.'

'You're not an artist, then?' she said, in a tone that placed him an
outsider.

'No,' he replied.

'He's a soldier, and an explorer, and a Napoleon of industry,' said
Birkin, giving Gerald his credentials for Bohemia.

'Are you a soldier?' asked the girl, with a cold yet lively curiosity.