"Helen, why can't you see my point of view? Would you like to see me a failure at Lavery's? Wouldn't you feel hurt to hear everybody sniggering about me?"
"I should feel hurt to think that you could only succeed at Lavery's by taking away my freedom."
"Helen, marriage isn't freedom. It's partnership. I can't do what I like. Neither can you."
"I can try, though."
"Yes, and you can succeed in making my life at Millstead unendurable."
She cried fiercely: "I won't talk about it any longer, Kenneth. We don't agree and apparently we shan't, however long we argue. I still think I've a right to ask Smallwood in to tea if I want to."
"And I still think you haven't."
"Very well, then—" with a laugh—"that's a deadlock, isn't it?"
He stared at the fire silently for some moments, then rose, and came to the back of her chair. Something in her attitude seemed to him blindingly, achingly pathetic; the tears rushed to his eyes; he felt he had been cruel to her. One part of him urged him to have pity on her, not to let her suffer, to give way, at all costs, rather than bring shadows over her life; to appeal, passionately and perhaps sentimentally, that she would, for his sake, if she loved him, make his task at Lavery's no harder than it need be. The other part of him said: No, you have said what is perfectly fair and true; you have nothing at all to apologise for. If you apologise you will only weaken your position for ever afterwards.
In the end the two conflicting parts of him effected a compromise. He said, good-humouredly, almost gaily, to her: "Yes, Helen, I'm afraid it is a deadlock. But that's no reason why it should be a quarrel. After all, we ought to be able to disagree without quarrelling. Now, let's allow the matter to drop, eh? Eh, Helen? Smile at me, Helen!"