XIV

“And what is the man at Stacks Gate like?” asked Connie.

“A big baby sort of fellow, very low-mouthed. She bullies him, and they both drink.”

“My word, if she came back!”

“My God, yes! I should just go, disappear again.”

There was a silence. The pasteboard in the fire had turned to grey ash.

“So when you did get a woman who wanted you,” said Connie, “you got a bit too much of a good thing.”

“Ay! Seems so! Yet even then I’d rather have her than the never-never ones: the white love of my youth, and that other poison-smelling lily, and the rest.”

“What about the rest?” said Connie.

“The rest? There is no rest. Only to my experience the mass of women are like this: most of them want a man, but don’t want the sex, but they put up with it, as part of the bargain. The more old-fashioned sort just lie there like nothing and let you go ahead. They don’t mind afterwards: then they like you. But the actual thing itself is nothing to them, a bit distasteful. And most men like it that way. I hate it. But the sly sort of women who are like that pretend they’re not. They pretend they’re passionate and have thrills. But it’s all cockaloopy. They make it up.⁠—Then there’s the ones that love everything, every kind of feeling and cuddling and going off, every kind except the natural one. They always make you go off when you’re not in the only place you should be, when you go off.⁠—Then there’s the hard sort, that are the devil to bring off at all, and bring themselves off, like my wife. They want to be the active party.⁠—Then there’s the sort that’s just dead inside: but dead: and they know it. Then there’s the sort that puts you out before you really ‘come,’