CHAPTER XIV
YOUTH TO YOUTH
1
Kay was home for the Christmas vacation. He was full, not so much of Cambridge, as of schemes for establishing a co-operative press next year. He was learning printing and binding, and wanted Gerda to learn too.
"Because, if you're really not going to marry Barry, and if Barry sticks to not having you without, you'll be rather at a loose end, won't you, and you may as well come and help us with the press.... But of course, you know," Kay added absently, his thoughts still on the press, "I should advise you to give up on that point."
"Give up, Kay? Marry, do you mean?"
"Yes.... It doesn't seem to me to be a point worth making a fuss about. Of course I agree with you in theory—I always have. But I've come to think lately that it's not a point of much importance. And perfectly sensible people are doing it all the time. You know Jimmy Kenrick and Susan Mallow have done it? They used to say they wouldn't, but they have. The fact is, people do do it, whatever they say about it beforehand. And though in theory it's absurd, it seems often to work out pretty well in actual life. Personally I should make no bones about it, if I wanted a girl and she wanted marriage. Of course a girl can always go on being called by her own name if she likes. That has points."
"Of course one could do that," Gerda pondered.
"It's a sound plan in some ways. It saves trouble and explanation to go on with the name you've published your things under before marriage.... By the way, what about your poems, Gerda? They'll be about ready by the time we get our press going, won't they? We can afford to have some slight stuff of that sort if we get hold of a few really good things to start with, to make our name."