“I stand for monogamy and chastity. And for no talking about it. Of course if a man who’s a man wants to have a woman he has her. And again, no talking about it.”

In this quote spoken to Macmaster, Christopher establishes the central theme of the novel: love in a morally decaying society. Christopher will walk the line between monogamy and chastity, trying to maintain both. He is stuck between being married to a woman he does not love, and not being with the woman he does. Technically, it is impossible for him to find love and maintain his stand on monogamy and chastity; and this dynamic applies to every major character in the novel as well.

“Perhaps the future of the world then was to women?”

Christopher says this to himself while riding with Valentine Wannop. Her intellectualism greatly impresses him. He briefly considers a world run by women, which he concludes could not possibly be worse than a world run by men—a world from which he feels increasingly disconnected. The quote underlines a minor theme threaded throughout the novel: the growing movement not only for women’s suffrage and human rights in general.

“She asked herself the eternal question—and she knew it to be the eternal question—whether no man and woman can ever leave it at the beautiful inclination.”

Valentine ponders the nature of physical love. Christopher has returned for a short time from France. The First World War is grinding on, and he is about to be sent back to the front lines. The question hanging in the air is whether Valentine will officially become Christopher’s mistress or not.