“I care about it because I like definiteness,” he said.

“Definiteness is not in the form but the love,” she said, more and more irritated, not by his words, but by the tone of cool composure in which he spoke. “What do you want it for?”

“My God! love again,” he thought, frowning.

“Oh, you know what for; for your sake and your children’s in the future.”

“There won’t be children in the future.”

“That’s a great pity,” he said.

“You want it for the children’s sake, but you don’t think of me?” she said, quite forgetting or not having heard that he had said,