They were soon at Mansfield, that once-romantic, now utterly disheartening colliery town. Hilda stopped at the hotel named in the motorcar book, and took a room. The whole thing was utterly uninteresting, and she was almost too angry to talk. However, Connie had to tell her something of the man's history.
"He! He! What name do you call him by? You only say he," said Hilda.
"I've never called him by any name: nor he me: which is curious, when you come to think of it. Unless we say Lady Jane and John Thomas. But his name is Oliver Mellors."
"And how would you like to be Mrs. Oliver Mellors, instead of Lady Chatterley?"
"I'd love it."
There was nothing to be done with Connie. And anyhow, if the man had been a lieutenant in the army in India for four or five years, he must be more or less presentable. Apparently he had character. Hilda began to relent a little.
"But you'll be through with him in a while," she said, "and then you'll be ashamed of having been connected with him. One can't mix up with the working people."
"But you are such a socialist! You're always on the side of the working classes."
"I may be on their side in a political crisis, but being on their side makes me know how impossible it is to mix one's life with theirs. Not out of snobbery, but just because the whole rhythm is different."
Hilda had lived among the real political intellectuals, so she was disastrously unanswerable.
The nondescript evening in the hotel dragged out, and at last they had a nondescript dinner. Then Connie slipped a few things into a little silk bag, and combed her hair once more.
"After all, Hilda," she said, "love can be wonderful; when you feel you live, and are in the very middle of creation." It was almost like bragging on her part.
"I suppose every mosquito feels the same," said Hilda.
"Do you think it does? How nice for it!"
The evening was wonderfully clear and long-lingering, even in the small town. It would be half-light all night. With a face like a mask, from resentment, Hilda started her car again, and the two
