"But, Barry, I thought you knew. I don't hold with marriage."
Barry threw back his head and laughed, because she looked so innocent and so serious and young as she lay there among the pears and bandages.
"All right, darling. You've not needed to hold with it up till now. But now you'd better catch on to it as quickly as you can, and hold it tight, because it's what's going to happen."
Gerda moved her bandaged head in denial.
"Oh, no, Barry. I can't.... I thought you knew. Haven't we ever talked about marriage before?"
"Oh, probably. Yes, I think I've heard you and Kay both on the subject. You don't hold with legal ties in what should be purely a matter of emotional impulse, I know. But crowds of people talk like that and then get married. I've no doubt Kay will too, when his time comes."
"Kay won't. He thinks marriage quite wrong. And so do I."
Barry, who had stopped laughing, settled himself to talk it out.
"Why wrong, Gerda? Superfluous, if you like; irrelevant, if you like; but why wrong?"
"Because it's a fetter on what shouldn't be fettered. Love might stop. Then it would be ugly."