you late then?'

'Lupton would talk about the immortality of the soul,' said Birkin,
'and then he hadn't got a button-hook.'

'Oh God!' cried Marshall. 'The immortality of the soul on your wedding
day! Hadn't you got anything better to occupy your mind?'

'What's wrong with it?' asked the bridegroom, a clean-shaven naval man,
flushing sensitively.

'Sounds as if you were going to be executed instead of married. THE
IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL!' repeated the brother-in-law, with most
killing emphasis.

But he fell quite flat.

'And what did you decide?' asked Gerald, at once pricking up his ears
at the thought of a metaphysical discussion.

'You don't want a soul today, my boy,' said Marshall. 'It'd be in your
road.'

'Christ! Marshall, go and talk to somebody else,' cried Gerald, with
sudden impatience.

'By God, I'm willing,' said Marshall, in a temper. 'Too much bloody
soul and talk altogether--'

He withdrew in a dudgeon, Gerald staring after him with angry eyes,
that grew gradually calm and amiable as the stoutly-built form of the
other man passed into the distance.

'There's one thing, Lupton,' said Gerald, turning suddenly to the
bridegroom. 'Laura won't have brought such a fool into the family as
Lottie did.'

'Comfort yourself with that,' laughed Birkin.

'I take no notice of them,' laughed the bridegroom.

'What about this race then--who began it?' Gerald asked.

'We were late. Laura was at the top of the churchyard steps when our
cab came up. She saw Lupton bolting towards her. And she fled. But why
do you look so cross? Does it hurt your sense of the family dignity?'

'It does, rather,' said Gerald. 'If you're doing a thing, do it
properly, and if you're not going to do it properly, leave it alone.'

'Very nice aphorism,' said Birkin.

'Don't you agree?' asked Gerald.

'Quite,' said Birkin. 'Only it bores me rather, when you become
aphoristic.'

'Damn you, Rupert, you want all the aphorisms your own way,' said
Gerald.

'No. I want them out of the way, and you're always shoving them in it.'

Gerald smiled grimly at this humorism. Then he made a little gesture of
dismissal, with his eyebrows.

'You don't believe in having any standard of behaviour at all, do you?'
he challenged Birkin, censoriously.

'Standard--no. I hate standards. But they're necessary for the common
ruck. Anybody who is anything can just be himself and do as he likes.'

'But what do you mean by being himself?'