anged their expression.

"Yes," he agreed steadily, "I admit it. Hereafter I mean to have what I
want from life at any cost."

"Yet you will go on talking ideals," Lawrence mocked.

"Yes--and thinking them, too."

"While Lawrence will make the sacrifice and go on talking his
selfishness," Claire added.

Both men laughed constrainedly.

"And I," Claire continued, "if it is necessary, will lie to preserve my
will, and, having it secure, will use it to obtain what I want."

"We are at last three delightfully frank, insufferable, unpleasant, and
very natural, likable human beings!" Lawrence laughed.

"And on that basis we will work out our fates," murmured Claire.

"We will do just that," Lawrence answered gaily.

"Be they good or bad, we will meet our futures with perfect
self-knowledge," contributed Philip.

"Then most likely they will be bad," Claire added with conviction.

They gave up talking, and each abandoned himself to his own reflections.
In the minds of the two men these thoughts assumed widely differing
words, though they were the same thoughts.

Philip was garbing his impulses, desires, and determinations in clothes
that furnished his habitual mental wardrobe. With their marriage, he
thought, Claire would learn the real Philip. He would treat her with
such deference, such tender respect, and such devotion that she would
see the wisdom of her choice. He would prove to her that sex mattered
little, was altogether secondary. It was her great companionship, her
dear thoughtfulness, her charming personality that he loved. Respect,
first of all: happy married life depended on respect; then, common
interest, friendship between two human beings, and, last and least
important, that wonderful emotion springing out of the divine God-given
reproductive life of both.

Lawrence was thinking very different words to the same end. He thought
of her as his mate, his comrade, and his equal. He admired her brain,
smiled at the thought of their hours of intellectual pleasure, dreamed
of her as the stimulus to creation which her mind should help shape into
master work.

He loved her beauty and her measureless well of bubbling energy. What a
help she could be to him! She was the greatest of all women; he wanted
her, needed her. Could he realize his dream? That was the point. Well,
no matter, or, at least, no use in speculating. He would try. If she
were willing, what a life of joy and accomplishment lay before them!