Colin: It may be. You never can tell.
John: And it may not be ... a mistaken marriage messes up two lives at least.
Colin: But they’re not uncommon.
John: It’s silly, isn’t it?
Colin: But there it is.
John: Do you know what I believe I ought to do?
Colin: What?
John: Go to Frankie and either break off our engagement, or else ask her to come away with me somewhere.... I’m perfectly serious; you may say “There it is ... it’s the way Civilisation has always managed it.” Civilisation made millions of young people kill and maim and torture one another for five bloody years—there’s something wrong with Civilisation. I don’t mean that because a thing was there before the war it must be wrong—but it may be ... a good many things have got to be thought out again from the beginning—this business of marriage is one of them.
Colin: Have you said anything about it to her?
John: No.