‘One has wrestled through loves of different kinds,’ said Kingston, securely continuing his soliloquy, ‘and it is certainly a blessed surprise to find that the real thing is placid and satisfying. The hunger and thirst of passion are fierce and dreadful--it never seemed likely that perfect happiness could be found in the mere appeasing of them. I am sure I much prefer the lasting, tranquil completeness of an emotion to the feverish clamour of an appetite. And that, after all, is what most people seem to mean by love. I have always rather hated violence and brutal manifestations. They seem a little vulgar, very crude and indecent, very unworthy of our higher emotional powers.’ ‘My boy is so full of nice feeling,’ said Lady Adela; ‘violence is a terrible thing. I remember I once saw a dog run over by a tram. I have never forgotten it.’ ‘One feels a certain something solid and eternal about real love,’ went on her son, contentedly talking to himself aloud under pretence of addressing his mother. ‘It is a huge level tract of feeling, stretching out into the immensities, without anything to break the enormous flat surface of it. It goes on for ever and ever, without valleys or pinnacles, or rough places of any kind. And surely that is better than perpetually scrambling up peaks and falling off them again, into abysses. Real love is not a mountain track; it is a solid turnpike road with a smooth, sound surface. One’s life jogs along it imperceptibly, and one’s attention need not be kept fixed on the driving to see where one is going. With Gundred I feel that I am with someone whom I have known for ages in the past, and whom I shall continue to know for ages in the future, without jars or disconnections. There is something monumental, something filling about the sensation. People who find the hot rough-and-tumble pandemian love enough for them would think the real heavenly feeling stodgy and perhaps--well, perhaps even a little dull. It does lack diversity somehow. It offers repletion without any sauces to appetise. But, then, I suppose the immensities must of necessity seem monotonous to our small, jigging intelligences.’ ‘I am sure, Kingston,’ said Lady Adela with conviction, ‘that no one could have a better intelligence than you. It is quite something to be thankful for.’