[Gccg-devel] ders. "Disgusting,"

[Negroni <ind...@gi...>]

Gainst 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, anyhow, a point of view, and has its own merits. But your minds
seem to me to be in a hopeless muddle. You think you're going forward
while you're really going back." "Marriage," said Gerda, "is so
Victorian. It's like antimacassars." "Now, my dear, do you mean
_anything_ by either of those statements? Marriage wasn't invented in
Victoria's reign. Nor did it occur more frequently in that reign than it
had before or does now. Why Victorian, then? And why antimacassars?
Think it out. How _can_ a legal contract be like a doyley on the back of
a chair? Where is the resemblance? It sounds like a riddle, only there's
no answer. No, you know you've got no answer. That kind of remark is
sheer sentimentality and muddle-headedness. Why are people in their
twenties so often sentimental? That's another riddle." "That's what Nan
says. She told me once that she used to be sentimental when she was
twenty. Was she?" "More than she is now, anyhow." Neville's voice was a
little curt. She was not happy about Nan, who had just gone to Rome