A woman should be able to kiss a man beautifully and romantically without any desire to be either his wife or his mistress.
 F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Beautiful and Damned (1922). copy citation

Context

“As he spoke there was in his heart that tremulousness that we take for sincerity in ourselves.
Afterward he remembered one reply of hers to something he had asked her. He remembered it in this form—perhaps he had unconsciously arranged and polished it:
"A woman should be able to kiss a man beautifully and romantically without any desire to be either his wife or his mistress."
As always when he was with her she seemed to grow gradually older until at the end ruminations too deep for words would be wintering in her eyes. An hour passed, and the fire leaped up in little ecstasies as though its fading life was sweet.” source

Meaning and analysis

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