er of us ever change? Suppose we both go on thinking as we do now
for always? What then?"

He smoothed the knitted forehead with his fingers.

"Then one of us will have to be a traitor to his or her principles. A
pity, but sometimes necessary in this complicated world. Or, if we can
neither of us bring ourselves down to that, I suppose eventually we shall
each perpetrate with someone else the kind of union we personally
prefer."

They parted on that. The thing had not grown serious yet; they could
still joke about it.

3

Though Gerda said "What's the use of my talking about it to people when
I've made up my mind?" and though she had not the habit of talking for
conversation's sake, she did obediently open the subject with her
parents, in order to assure herself beyond a doubt what they felt about
it. But she knew already that their opinions were what you might expect
of parents, even of broad-minded, advanced parents, who rightly believed
themselves not addicted to an undiscriminating acceptance of the
standards and decisions of a usually mistaken world. But Barry was wrong
in saying they weren't institutionalists; they were. Parents are.

Rodney was more opinionated than Neville, on this subject as on most
others. He said, crossly, "It's a beastly habit, unlegitimatised union.
When I say beastly, I mean beastly; nothing derogatory, but merely like
the beasts--the other beasts, that is."

Gerda said "Well, that's not really an argument against it. In that sense
it's beastly when we sleep out instead of in bed, or do lots of other
quite nice things. The way men and women do things isn't necessarily the
best way," and there Rodney had to agree with her. He fell back on "It's
unbusinesslike. Suppose you have children?" and Gerda, who had supposed
all that with Barry, sighed. Rodney said a lot more, but it made little
impression on her, beyond corroborating her views on the matrimonial
theories of middle-aged people.

Neville made rather more. To Neville Gerda said "How can I go back on
everything I've always said and thought about it, and go and get married?
It would be so _reactionary_."

Neville, who had a headache and was irritable, said "It's the other thing
that's reactionary. It existed long before the marriage tie did. That's
what I don't understand about all you children who pride yourselves on
being advanced. If you frankly take your stand on going back to nature,
on _being_ reactionary--well, it is,