Rodney was more opinionated than Neville, on this subject as on most others. He said, crossly, "It's a beastly habit, unlegitimatised union. When I say beastly, I mean beastly; nothing derogatory, but merely like the beasts—the other beasts, that is."
Gerda said "Well, that's not really an argument against it. In that sense it's beastly when we sleep out instead of in bed, or do lots of other quite nice things. The way men and women do things isn't necessarily the best way," and there Rodney had to agree with her. He fell back on "It's unbusinesslike. Suppose you have children?" and Gerda, who had supposed all that with Barry, sighed. Rodney said a lot more, but it made little impression on her, beyond corroborating her views on the matrimonial theories of middle-aged people.
Neville made rather more. To Neville Gerda said "How can I go back on everything I've always said and thought about it, and go and get married? It would be so reactionary."
Neville, who had a headache and was irritable, said "It's the other thing that's reactionary. It existed long before the marriage tie did. That's what I don't understand about all you children who pride yourselves on being advanced. If you frankly take your stand on going back to nature, on being reactionary—well, it is, anyhow, a point of view, and has its own merits. But your minds seem to me to be in a hopeless muddle. You think you're going forward while you're really going back."
"Marriage," said Gerda, "is so Victorian. It's like antimacassars."
"Now, my dear, do you mean anything by either of those statements? Marriage wasn't invented in Victoria's reign. Nor did it occur more frequently in that reign than it had before or does now. Why Victorian, then? And why antimacassars? Think it out. How can a legal contract be like a doyley on the back of a chair? Where is the resemblance? It sounds like a riddle, only there's no answer. No, you know you've got no answer. That kind of remark is sheer sentimentality and muddle-headedness. Why are people in their twenties so often sentimental? That's another riddle."
"That's what Nan says. She told me once that she used to be sentimental when she was twenty. Was she?"
"More than she is now, anyhow."
Neville's voice was a little curt. She was not happy about Nan, who had just gone to Rome for the winter.
"Well," Gerda said, "anyhow I'm not sentimental about not meaning to marry. I've thought about it for years, and I know."