Her slim hands began to flutter a little in his as she answered all that that "Well" implied.
"It's impossible, dear. It's no use arguing about it. It's just waste of time—and we've only got this little time."
"To do what? To make love in? Dear, we've got all our lives if we please. We've both made a tremendous mistake, we've both got a chance now of going back on it, of setting our lives right again, making them better indeed than we ever dreamed of their being. We inflict some loss on other people—no loss comparable to our gain—we hurt them chiefly because of their bloated ideas of their claims on us. I know you've weighed things, have no prejudices. Rules, systems, are made for types and classes, not for us. You belong to no type, Mildred. I belong to no class."
She answered low, painfully:
"It's true I am unlike other people; that's the very reason, why—I—I'm not good to love." There was a low utterance that was music in her ears, yet she continued: "Then, dear friend, think of your career, ruined for me, by me. You might be happy for a while, then you'd regret it."
"That's where you're wrong. My career? A rotten little game, these House of Commons party politics, when you get into it! The big things go on outside them; there's all the world outside them. Anyhow, my career, as I planned it, is ruined already. The Ipswich gang have collared me; I can't call my tongue my own, Mildred. Think of that!"
She smiled faintly.
"Temporary, George! You'll soon have your head up—and your tongue out."
"Oh, from time to time, I presume, I shall always be the Horrid Vulgar Boy of those poor Barthops; I shall kick like a galvanized frog long after I'm dead. But—I wouldn't confess it to any one but you, dear—I'm not strong enough to stand against the everlasting pressure that's brought to bear upon me. You know what I mean, don't you?"
"Yes. You'll be no good if you let the originality be squeezed out of you. Don't allow it."