tween being Mrs. Skrebensky, even Baroness Skrebensky,
wife of a lieutenant in the Royal Engineers, the Sappers, as he
called them, living with the European population in
India--or being Ursula Brangwen, spinster, school-mistress.
She was qualified by her Intermediate Arts examination. She
would probably even now get a post quite easily as assistant in
one of the higher grade schools, or even in Willey Green School.
Which was she to do?

She hated most of all entering the bondage of teaching once
more. Very heartily she detested it. Yet at the thought of
marriage and living with Skrebensky amid the European population
in India, her soul was locked and would not budge. She had very
little feeling about it: only there was a deadlock.

Skrebensky waited, she waited, everybody waited for the
decision. When Anton talked to her, and seemed insidiously to
suggest himself as a husband to her, she knew how utterly locked
out he was. On the other hand, when she saw Dorothy, and
discussed the matter, she felt she would marry him promptly, at
once, as a sharp disavowal of adherence with Dorothy's
views.

The situation was almost ridiculous.

"But do you love him?" asked Dorothy.

"It isn't a question of loving him," said Ursula. "I love him
well enough--certainly more than I love anybody else in the
world. And I shall never love anybody else the same again. We
have had the flower of each other. But I don't care about love.
I don't value it. I don't care whether I love or whether I
don't, whether I have love or whether I haven't. What is it to
me?"

And she shrugged her shoulders in fierce, angry contempt.

Dorothy pondered, rather angry and afraid.

"Then what do you care about?" she asked,
exasperated.

"I don't know," said Ursula. "But something impersonal.
Love--love--love--what does it mean--what
does it amount to? So much personal gratification. It doesn't
lead anywhere."

"It isn't supposed to lead anywhere, is it?" said Dorothy,
satirically. "I thought it was the one thing which is an end in
itself."

"Then what does it matter to me?" cried Ursula. "As an end in
itself, I could love a hundred men, one after the other. Why
should I end with a Skrebensky? Why should I not go on, and love
all the types I fancy, one after another, if love is an end in
itself? There are plenty of men who aren't Anton, whom I could
love--whom I would like to love."

"Then you don't love him," said Dorothy.

"I tell you I do;