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Page 121
Sybelle looked up. "People who love each other hurt each other."
It was a startling statement. Walter began to protest, to utter soothing platitudes, and then recognized the profound truth in what Sybelle had said. A murmur of sweet nothings would be an insult to the seriousness and honesty she was offering him.
"Yes, but people who love each other also help and support each other."
"But which will we do?" Sybelle whispered.
"Both," Walter replied honestly. "Dearling, it is impossible in a long life together, which I pray we will have, that we should not differ." He smiled down at her. "I have sampled your sharp tongue already. I was then too much surprised to answerand there was some truth in your complaint, although not muchbut another time I fear I will also say what comes first to mu lips, and so we will quarrel."
She sighed. "It is not the quarrels I fear but what comes after."
The only women with whom Walter had ever quarreled had been his mistresses, some of whom used that device to extract an extra trinket before yielding their bodies or occasionally out of jealousy or even to add spice to the affair. In any event, every quarrel Walter had ever had with a woman had been reconciled between the sheets of a bed.
Before he realized that Sybelle's experience must be different, he said, "Making love? You fear coupling?"
Now Sybelle looked startled. "I do not think so," she replied. "From what I have heard it is a joyous thingbut what has that to do with quarreling?"
Walter flushed, hesitated over the impulse to say he had misunderstood her, and instead answered truthfully, "It is the way most quarrels between men and women are settled."
"But how can that settle the disposition of a case of justice, oror who should be appointed as castellan, for example?"
"What" Walter began, and stopped abruptly. He had been about to ask what Sybelle had to do with justice or the appointment of castellans when he remembered that she would, indeed, make such decisions. "Do you think we are likely to quarrel about such things?" he asked instead. "Your father assured me that your mother and grandmother were always

 
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