desire to marry, in your sense.

GERTRUDE. But you are devoted to each other!

AGNES. Thoroughly.

GERTRUDE. What, is that the meaning of "for as long as you are
together?" You would go your different ways if ever you found that one
of you was making the other unhappy?

AGNES. I do mean that. We remain together only to help, to heal, to
console. Why should men and women be so eager to grant to each other
the power of wasting life? That is what marriage gives--the right to
destroy years and years of life. And the right, once given, it attracts
--attracts! We have both suffered from it. So many rich years out of my
life have been squandered by it. And out of his life, so much force,
energy--spent in battling with the shrew, the termagant he has now
fled from; strength never to be replenished, never to be repaid--all
wasted, wasted!

GERTRUDE. Your legal marriage with him might not bring further
miseries.

AGNES. Too late! We have done with marriage; we distrust it. We are not
now among those who regard marriage as indispensable to union. We have
done with it!

GERTRUDE. [Advancing to her.] You know that it would be impossible for
me, if I would do so, to deceive my brother as to all this.