But best of all to persist and persist and persist for ever, till one were satisfied in life.
He knew that Ursula was referred back to him.

He knew his life rested with her.

But he would rather not live than accept the love she proffered.

The old way of love seemed a dreadful bondage, a sort of conscription.

What it was in him he did not know, but the thought of love, marriage, and children, and a life lived together, in the horrible privacy of domestic and connubial satisfaction, was repulsive.
He wanted something clearer, more open, cooler, as it were.