We shall
write much together, urging our views on this subject of Marriage. We
shall have to be poor, I expect, but we shall be content.
GERTRUDE. Content!
AGNES. Quite content. Don't judge us by my one piece of cowardly folly
in keeping the truth from you, Mrs. Thorpe, Indeed, it's our great plan
to live the life we have mapped out for ourselves, fearlessly, openly;
faithful to each other, helpful to each other, so long as we remain
together.
GERTRUDE. But tell me--you don't know how I--how I have liked you!--
tell me, if Mr. Cleeve's wife divorces him, he will marry you?
AGNES. No.
GERTRUDE. No!
AGNES. No. I haven't made you quite understand--Lucas and I don't
desire to marry, in your sense.
GERTRUDE. But you are devoted to each other!
AGNES. Thoroughly.
GERTRUDE. What, is that the meaning of "for as long as you are
together?" You would go your different ways if ever you found that one
of you was making the other unhappy?
AGNES. I do mean that. We remain together only to help, to heal, to
console. Why should men and women be so eager to grant to each other
the power of wasting life? That is what marriage gives--the right to
destroy years and years of life. And the right, once given, it attracts
--attracts! We have both suffered from it.
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