She had covered her face with her hands, she had shuddered. The amateur uncle, now professionally a husband, had come to claim his rights—drunk. She had fought him, she had eluded him, had run away and locked herself into another room. On the second night of her honeymoon he gave her a bruise on the forehead and a bite on the left breast which had gone on septically festering for weeks. On the fourth, more determined than ever, he seized her so violently by the throat, that a blood-vessel broke and she began coughing bright blood over the bedclothes. The amateur uncle had been reduced to send for a doctor and Emily had spent the next few weeks in a nursing home. That was four years ago; her husband had tried to induce her to come back, but Emily had refused. She had a little money of her own; she was able to refuse. The amateur uncle had consoled himself with other and more docile nieces.
“And has nobody tried to make love to you since then?” he asked.
“Oh, lots of them have tried.”
“And not succeeded?”
She shook her head. “I don’t like men,” she said. “They’re hateful, most of them. They’re brutes.”
“Anch’ io?”
“What?” she asked, puzzled.
“Am I a brute too?” And behind his beard, suddenly, he felt rather a brute.
“No,” said Emily, after a little hesitation, “you’re different. At least I think you are; though sometimes,” she added candidly, “sometimes you do and say things which make me wonder if you really are different.”
The Complete Man laughed.