Rachel had been right, then, when she said that night in the garden, "We
bring out what's worst in each other--we should live separate."

No Rachel had been utterly wrong! Every argument seemed to be against
undertaking the burden of marriage until he came to Rachel's argument,
which was manifestly absurd. From having been the pursued, he turned
and became the pursuer. Allowing the case against marriage to lapse, he
began to consider the peculiarities of character which had led to her
saying that. Had she meant it? Surely one ought to know the character of
the person with whom one might spend all one's life; being a novelist,
let him try to discover what sort of person she was. When he was with
her he could not analyse her qualities, because he seemed to know them
instinctively, but when he was away from her it sometimes seemed to him
that he did not know her at all. She was young, but she was also old;
she had little self-confidence, and yet she was a good judge of people.
She was happy; but what made her happy? If they were alone and the
excitement had worn off, and they had to deal with the ordinary facts of
the day, what would happen? Casting his eye upon his own character,
two things appeared to him: that he was very unpunctual, and that he
disliked answering notes. As far as he knew Rachel was inclined to be
punctual, but he could not remember that he had ever seen her with a pen
in her hand. Let him next imagine a dinner-party, say at the Crooms, and
Wilson, who had taken her down, talking about the state of the Liberal
party. She would say--of course she was absolutely ignorant of politics.
Nevertheless she was intelligent certainly, and honest too. Her temper
was uncertain--that he had noticed--and she was not domestic, and
she was not easy, and she was not quiet, or beautiful, except in
some dresses in some lights. But the great gift she had was that she
understood what was said to her; there had never been any one like her
for talking to. You could say anything--you could say everything, and
yet she was never servile. Here he pulled himself up, for it seemed to
him suddenly that he knew less about her than about any one. All these
thoughts had occurred to him many times already; often had he tried to
argue and reason; and again he had reached the old state of doubt. He
did not know her, and he did not know what she felt, or whether they
could live together, or whether he wanted to marry her, and yet he was
i