Now Hermione came round the bushes with Gerald Crich. He had come along with Alexander. Gerald was presented to everybody, was kept by Hermione for a few moments in full view, then he was led away, still by Hermione. He was evidently her guest of the moment.

There had been a split in the Cabinet; the minister for Education had resigned owing to adverse criticism. This started a conversation on education.

`Of course,' said Hermione, lifting her face like a rhapsodist, `there can be no reason, no excuse for education, except the joy and beauty of knowledge in itself.' She seemed to rumble and ruminate with subterranean thoughts for a minute, then she proceeded: `Vocational education isn't education, it is the close of education.'

Gerald, on the brink of discussion, sniffed the air with delight and prepared for action.

`Not necessarily,' he said. `But isn't education really like gymnastics, isn't the end of education the production of a well-trained, vigorous, energetic mind?'

`Just as athletics produce a healthy body, ready for anything,' cried Miss Bradley, in hearty accord.

Gudrun looked at her in silent loathing.

`Well --' rumbled Hermione, `I don't know. To me the pleasure of knowing is so great, so wonderful -- nothing has meant so much to me in all life, as certain knowledge -- no, I am sure -- nothing.'

`What knowledge, for example, Hermione?' asked Alexander.

Hermione lifted her face and rumbled --

`M -- m -- m -- I don't know . . . But one thing was the stars, when I really understood something about the stars. One feels so uplifted, so unbounded . . .'

Birkin looked at her in a white fury.

`What do you want to feel unbounded for?' he said sarcastically. `You don't want to be unbounded.'

Hermione recoiled in offence.

`Yes, but one does have that limitless feeling,' said Gerald. `It's like getting on top of the mountain and seeing the Pacific.'

`Silent upon a peak in Dariayn,' murmured the Italian, lifting her face for a moment from her book.

`Not necessarily in Dariayn,' said Gerald, while Ursula began to laugh.

Hermione waited for the dust to settle, and then she said, untouched:

`Yes, it is the greatest thing in life -- to know. It is really to be happy, to be free.'

`Knowledge is, of course, liberty,' said Mattheson.

`In compressed tabloids,' said Birkin, looking at the dry, stiff little body of the Baronet. Immediately Gudrun saw the famous sociologist as a flat bottle, containing tabloids of compressed liberty. That pleased her. Sir Joshua was labelled and placed forever in her mind.

`What does that mean, Rupert?' sang Hermione, in a calm snub.