Hazel admitted it.
"You see," Bill concluded, "this civilization of ours, with its peculiar business ethics, and its funny little air of importance, is a comparatively recent thing—a product of the last two or three thousand years, to give it its full historic value. And mankind has been a great many millions of years in the making, all of which has been spent under primitive conditions. So that we are as yet barbarians, savages even, with just a little veneer. Why, man, as such, is only beginning to get a glimmering of his relation to the universe. Pshaw, though! I didn't set out to deliver a lecture on evolution. But, believe me, little person, if I thought that any great good or happiness would result from my being elsewhere, from scrapping with my fellows in the world crush, I'd be there with both feet. Do you think you'd be more apt to care for me if I were to get out and try to set the world afire with great deeds?"
"That wasn't the question," she returned distantly, trying, as she always did, to keep him off the personal note.
"But it is the question with me," he declared. "I don't know why I let you go on flouting me." He reached over and caught her arm with a grip that made her wince. The sudden leap of passion into his eyes quickened the beat of her heart. "I could break you in two with my hands without half trying—tame you as the cave men tamed their women, by main strength. But I don't—by reason of the same peculiar feeling that would keep me from kicking a man when he was down, I suppose. Little person, why can't you like me better?"
"Because you tricked me," she retorted hotly. "Because I trusted you, and you used that trust to lead me farther astray. Any woman would hate a man for that. What do you suppose—you, with your knowledge of life—the world will think of me when I get out of here?"
But Roaring Bill had collected himself, and sat smiling, and made no reply. He looked at her thoughtfully for a few seconds, then resumed his reading of the Mad Philosopher, out of whose essays he seemed to extract a great deal of quiet amusement.
A day or two after that Hazel came into the kitchen and found Bill piling towels, napkins, and a great quantity of other soiled articles on an outspread tablecloth.
"Well," she inquired, "what are you going to do with those?"
"Take 'em to the laundry," he laughed. "Collect your dirty duds, and bring them forth."
"Laundry!" Hazel echoed. It seemed rather a far-fetched joke.