- One spring day, Mrs. Bolton helpfully suggests that Connie go out to look at the daffodils blooming behind the gamekeeper's cottage.
- Connie just wants to lie on the couch watching reruns of Say Yes to the Dress and eating stale Easter candy, but something—possibly remembering seeing the keeper naked—gets her up and out the door.
- She sits down behind the cottage and watches the daffodils while she leans against a pine tree that, without any double meaning whatsoever, is described as "powerful,""rising up,""erect," and "alive" (8.12). It's nice, and she even picks a few daffodils to take home with her.
- The next day, she heads out again, but this time she takes a different road. On her way home, she follows the sound of a hammer and finds Mellors and his dog in a little clearing. Fancy meeting him there!
- She asks to sit down. He grumbles but pulls out a chair in a little makeshift hut and even lights a fire for her.
- As she sits in the doorway, she watches the keeper. And he watches her watching him. They both seethe resentment at each other: he hates her for being a woman, for being upper-class, and for being in his private space; she hates him for hating her. It's love at first sight.
- Before she leaves, she asks if she can have a key to the hut so she can come sit alone sometimes. He stonewalls her and she storms home angrily.
- Clifford pretends he doesn't care that she's late to make his tea, and they make mean-spirited conversation about how Mellors is too uppity for a gamekeeper before arguing about the meaning of the word "ravish." Just your typical domestic squabble.
- A few days later, after some rain, Connie heads out to the hut again and runs into Mellors. She thinks he's insolent; he thinks she's a snob. They argue. Connie doesn't know whether to slap him or jump him right there. Since this isn't 50 Shades of Grey, she decides to do neither.