ach other and with you. They brought you
up with definite ideas about what they wanted you to become--fairly well
thought-out and consistent ideas, I suppose. I don't say they could do
much--parents never can--but something soaks in."

"Usually something silly and bad."

"Often, yes. Anyhow a queer kind of mixed brew. But at least the parents
have their chance. It's what they're there for; they've got to do all
they know, while the children are young, to influence them towards what
they personally believe, however mistakenly, to be the finest points of
view. Of course lots of it is, as you say, silly and bad, because people
_are_ largely silly and bad. But no parent can be absolved from doing his
or her best."

Barry was walking round the conservatory, eager and full of faith and
hope and fire, talking rapidly, the educational enthusiast, the ardent
citizen, the social being, the institutionalist, all over. He was all
these things; he was rooted and grounded in citizenship, in social
ethics. He stopped by the couch and stood looking down at Gerda among
her fruit, his hands in his pockets, his eyes bright and lit.

"All the same, darling, I shall never want to fetter you. If you ever
want to leave me, I shan't come after you. The legal tie shan't stand in
your way. And to me it would make no difference; I shouldn't leave you in
any case, married or not. So I don't see how or why you score in doing
without the contract."

"It's the idea of the thing, partly. I don't want to wear a wedding ring
and be Mrs. Briscoe. I want to be Gerda Bendish, living with Barry
Briscoe because we like to.... I expect, Barry, in my case it _would_
be for always, because, at present, I can't imagine stopping caring more
for you than for anything else. But that doesn't affect the principle of
the thing. It would be _wrong_ for me to marry you. One oughtn't to give
up one's principles just because it seems all right in a particular case.
It would be cheap and shoddy and cowardly."

"Exactly," said Barry, "what I feel. I can't give up my principle either,
you know. I've had mine longer than you've had yours."

"I've had mine since I was about fifteen."

"Five years. Well, I've had mine for twenty. Ever since I first began to
think anything out, that is."

"People of your age," said Gerda, "people over thirty, I mean, often
think like that about marriage. I've noticed it. So has Kay."

"Observant infants. Well, there we stand, then. On