ny? Men are so different, thought Jane. Johnny
was the same at Oxford. He would flirt with girls in tea-shops. Jane had
never wanted to flirt with the waiters in restaurants. Men were perhaps
less critical; or perhaps they wanted different qualities in those with
whom they flirted; or perhaps it was that their amatory instinct, when
pronounced at all, was much stronger than women's, and flowed out on to
any object at hand when they were in the mood. Also, they certainly grew
up earlier. At Oxford and Cambridge girls weren't, for the most part,
grown-up enough to be thinking about that kind of thing at all. It came
on later, with most of them. But men of that age were, quite a lot of
them, mature enough to flirt with the girls in Buol's.

Jane discussed it with Gideon one evening. Gideon said, 'Men usually
have, as a rule, more sex feeling than women, that's all. Naturally. They
need more, to carry them through all the business of making marriage
proposals and keeping up homes, and so on. Women often have very little.
That's why they're often better at friendship than men are. A woman can
be a man's friend all their lives, but a man, in nine cases out of ten,
will either get tired of it or want more. Women have a tremendous gift
for friendship. Their friendships with other women are usually much more
devoted and more faithful than a man's with other men. Most men, though
of course not all, want sex in their lives at some time or other.
Hundreds of women are quite happy without it. They're quite often nearly
sexless. Very few men are that.'

Jane said, 'There are plenty of women like Clare, whom one can't think of
apart from sex. No friendship would ever satisfy her. If she isn't a wife
and mother she'll be starved. She'll marry, of course.'

'Yes,' Gideon agreed. 'There are plenty of women like that. And when a
woman is like that, she's much more dependent on love and marriage than
any man is, because she usually has fewer other things in her life. But
there are women also like Katherine.'

'Oh, Katherine. K isn't even dependent on friendship. She only wants her
work. K isn't typical.'

'No; she isn't typical. She isn't a channel for the life force, like most
of us. She's too independent; she won't let herself be used in that way.'

'Am I a channel for the life force?' thought Jane. 'I suppose so. Hence
Oliver and baby. Is Arthur? I suppose so. Hence his wanting to marry me.'

2

Jane told her family that she w