"Our lives," he said, "are our own. Not what our ancestors make them."
"I don't believe it," Barry said, flatly. "I've fought a good fight, no one can say that I haven't. And I've lost. After this do you suppose that Mary will let me marry Leila? Do you suppose the General will let me marry her?"
"Will you let yourself marry her?"
Barry's face flamed. "Then you think I'm not worthy?"
"It is what you think, Ballard, not what I think."
Barry pulled up a handful of grass and threw it away, pulled up another handful and threw it away. Then he said, doggedly, "I'm going to marry her, Poole; no one shall take her away from me."
"And you call that love?"
"Yes. I can't live without her."
Roger with his eyes on the dark water which slipped by the banks, taking its shadows from the darkness of the thick branches which bent above it said quietly, "Love to me has always seemed something bigger than that—it has seemed as if love—great love took into consideration first the welfare of the beloved."
There was a long silence, out of which Barry said tempestuously, "It will break her heart if anything comes between us. I'm not saying that because am a conceited donkey. But she is such a constant little thing."