He sat looking out of the window, feeling her bewilderment and silent revolt. He hesitated whether he should tell Mary that he thought her religion erotic in origin and her feeling for the minister very personal indeed, but finally decided against it. She would deny it not only to him but to herself--women's minds were made like that. At last he said:
"I think at first you were in love with Laurence--but four years is a long time, and you were very young."
"Yes, you have, but you don't want to admit it. You think there are higher things than being in love. You seem to think of marriage as a serious responsibility, a--sort of discipline."
"Well, that isn't the way to go into it! Confound it, I tell you you had better not!"
He glared at her over his spectacles, then put out his hand and drew her toward him.
"What a child you are, Mary--with your airs of being a hundred and fifty!... I don't think you understand anything. The basis of marriage is physical, if that isn't right nothing is right--you want to think of that, Mary. It's flesh and spirit, but _both_, not divided. If your imagination is drawn away from Laurence to what you think are spiritual things, then you oughtn't to marry--or you ought to marry Hilary."
Mary stood like a stone--her fingers turned cold in his grasp. He saw the tears flood her eyes, and got up and led her to the door, and dismissed her with a kiss on her cold cheek.
She went out and stood at the gate, waiting for Laurence, uneasy about him, troubled by many thoughts, oppressed. She was still crying when she heard his step down the sidewalk, firm and quick. The thin little moon was already sinking behind the trees, but there was bright starlight, so that Laurence could see her face.
"Where have you been? Why did you run off like that?" she demanded with a sob.
She swung the gate open for him, but he took her hand and drew her out.
"It's early yet--come, we don't want to go in yet. Come, let's get away from everybody!"
She was quite willing at the moment to get away from everybody. Out of a vague sense of injury she continued to weep, and to Laurence's anxious inquiries she returned a sobbing answer:
"I don't think older people ought to interfere!... It's our own business, isn't it?... What do they know about it?..."
