"No, I don't, ..." said Ninian, but Henry, having started, would not let himself be interrupted. "I want to have lots and lots of women," he went on hurriedly, "but I don't care who knows about them. I like talking about my love-affairs...."
"Well, why don't you talk about 'em?" Gilbert demanded.
Henry was nonplussed. His speech became hesitant. "I ... I said I'd like to talk about them," he replied. "I didn't say I would do so...." He hurried away from the subject. "But chiefly," he said, "I don't want anything permanent in my life. Now, do you understand? Roger's like the Rock of Ages ... the same yesterday, to-day and forever, but I want to be different to-morrow from what I am to-day, and different again the day after. Endless variety for me!"
"It'll be an awful lot of trouble," said Gilbert.
"That doesn't matter. Now my argument is that I have a different nature from Roger and all of you, but I'm not a worse man than any of you are...."
"No, no, of course not," they asserted.
"I'm just different, that's all. The man who loves one woman and cleaves to her until death do them part isn't a better man or a worse man than the chap who loves a different woman every year, and doesn't cleave to any of them. He's just different. You see," he continued, pleased with the way he was enunciating his opinions, "we are of all sorts. There are lustful men and there are men who have scarcely any sex impulse at all, and there are coarse men and refined men, and ... and all sorts of men, and they're all necessary to the world. I say, why not recognise the differences between them and leave it at that! It's silly to try and fit us all with the same system of morals when nobody but a fool would try to fit us all with the same size hat!"
"You don't make any allowance for the views of women," Roger said.
"Oh, yes, I do," Henry retorted quickly. "There is as much variety among women as there is among men. Some of them are monogamous and some aren't. That's all!"
Gilbert stretched his legs out in front of him and then drew them back again. "Our little Quinny's got this world neatly parcelled out," he said. "Hasn't he, coves? There he sits, like a little Jehovah, handing out natures as if they were school-prizes. 'Here, my little lad, here's your set of morals. Now, run away and make a hog of yourself with the women!' 'Here, my little lad, here's your set of morals. Now, run away and be a bally monk!'"