Page:Sorrell and Son - Deeping - 1926.djvu/325

 "So much a question of temperament. Marriage is or was or should be a mere social arrangement for the begetting and rearing of children. That the luxury of sex should have got mixed up with it was all wrong. No desire for children, no marriage. If you want to cultivate the fine flower of sex? You see, Gulliver was a chap who wanted sex—like a cabbage rose, but he pretended to the woman that he wanted children."

"But—comradeship, Orange, the finer comradeship—and all that?"

"Sexual comradeship? Is there? Besides,—the new woman is quite logical. If sex is a mere incident and is to be treated as such by sophisticated people, marriage is superfluous."

"I can't follow that."

And Orange understood that Kit could not follow it. He was romantic. He had idealistic youth's vision of the one rose on the tree. He had not realized the other sex's errant and adventurous inclinations. He was not subtle. His very simplicity might some day compel some woman to love him very dearly, and perhaps to hide and imprison a part of herself that he would never divine or see.

"It's so much a question of temperament," said Orange.

"And character, surely?"

"The chemistry of character is organic."

Kit looked very serious.

"But that girl's temperament! I think I should be pretty well scared by it."

"O, like breaking the ice on the Serpentine on a frosty morning. The first plunge, a shock. After that, you might find it invigorating."

"I think I should prefer something gentler."

Christopher had maintained his friendship with John Kennard, now one of the senior surgeons, and when Kennard asked Kit to dinner, the younger man found himself one of a party of three. Sir Ormsby Gaunt was standing on Kennard's hearthrug, just as Kit had seen him facing a lecture room with a white-headed, easy dignity that no student