“Oh no. Best go slap for what’s womanly in woman, like a bull at a gate.” Then he seemed to glimmer in himself. “You think love is the ticket, do you?” he asked.
“Certainly, while it lasts—you only can’t insist on permanency,” came Gudrun’s voice, strident above the noise.
“Marriage or no marriage, ultimate or penultimate or just so-so?—take the love as you find it.”
“As you please, or as you don’t please,” she echoed. “Marriage is a social arrangement, I take it, and has nothing to do with the question of love.”
His eyes were flickering on her all the time. She felt as is he were kissing her freely and malevolently. It made the colour burn in her cheeks, but her heart was quite firm and unfailing.
“You think Rupert is off his head a bit?” Gerald asked.
Her eyes flashed with acknowledgment.
“As regards a woman, yes,” she said, “I do. There is such a thing as two people being in love for the whole of their lives—perhaps. But marriage is neither here nor there, even then. If they are in love, well and good. If not—why break eggs about it!”
“Yes,” said Gerald. “That’s how it strikes me. But what about Rupert?”
“I can’t make out—neither can he nor anybody. He seems to think that if you marry you can get through marriage into a third heaven, or something—all very vague.”