" Choosing
"affectionately," after some further speculation, rather than sincerely,
she signed the letter and was doggedly beginning on another when Terence
remarked, quoting from his book:
"Listen to this, Rachel. 'It is probable that Hugh' (he's the hero, a
literary man), 'had not realised at the time of his marriage, any more
than the young man of parts and imagination usually does realise, the
nature of the gulf which separates the needs and desires of the male
from the needs and desires of the female. . . . At first they had been
very happy. The walking tour in Switzerland had been a time of jolly
companionship and stimulating revelations for both of them. Betty had
proved herself the ideal comrade. . . . They had shouted _Love_ _in_
_the_ _Valley_ to each other across the snowy slopes of the Riffelhorn'
(and so on, and so on--I'll skip the descriptions). . . . 'But in
London, after the boy's birth, all was changed. Betty was an admirable
mother; but it did not take her long to find out that motherhood, as
that function is understood by the mother of the upper middle classes,
did not absorb the whole of her energies. She was young and strong, with
healthy limbs and a body and brain that called urgently for exercise.
. . .' (In short she began to give tea-parties.) . . . 'Coming in late
from this singular talk with old Bob Murphy in his smoky, book-lined
room, where the two men had each unloosened his soul to the other, with
the sound of the traffic humming in his ears, and the foggy London sky
slung tragically across his mind .
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