“It’s a pity,” Desire murmured, as though continuing a conversation, “that they couldn’t have remained happy.” “Who?” “Those two. They were such good companions, till he began to speak of love. I was with them all summer, wherever they went We used to talk philosophy, and life, and--oh, everything. Then one day I wasn’t with them; after that our happiness stopped.” “But she must have known that he loved her before he told her.” “Of course. That was what made us all so glad, because there was something left unsaid--something secret and throbbing. It was all gone when once it had been uttered.” “It oughtn’t to have gone. It ought to have become bigger and better.” He spoke urgently, hoping to hear her agree, “Yes. It ought.” They were fencing with their problem, discussing it in parables of other people’s lives. “Why doesn’t she marry him?” he asked. “I expect I’ve been brought up to a different set of standards, so I’m not criticizing; I’m trying to see things from her angle. I’ve been brought up to believe that marriage is what we were all made for; that it’s something gloriously natural and to be hoped for; that to grow old unmarried is to be maimed, especially if you’re a woman. All poetry and religion springs from motherhood; it’s the inspiration of all the biggest painters. I never dreamed that there were people who wilfully kept themselves from loving. I don’t know quite how to express myself. But to see yourself growing up in little children has always seemed to me to be a kind of immortality. There was a thing my mother once said: that marriage is the rampart which the soul flings up to guard itself against calamity. Don’t you think that’s true?” “You put it beautifully. That’s the man’s view of it.” She smiled broodingly; the plodding of the horse’s steps filled the pause. “When a man asks a woman to marry him, he asks her to give up her freedom. Before she’s married, she has the power; but afterwards---- When a man tells her that he loves her, he really means that he wants to be her master.” “Not her master.” He had forgotten now that it was Fluffy they were supposed to be discussing; he spoke desperately and his voice trembled. “Women aren’t strong like men. They can’t stand alone and, unless they’re loved, they lose half their world when their beauty’s gone. You say a woman gives up her freedom, but so does a man. They both lose one kind of freedom to get another. What he wants is to be allowed to protect her, to----”