“May they? If the appetite isn’t interested, the will is.”
“Why not?” she mocked. “We can’t be mere detached blocks.”
“It nauseates me—I look for something else.”
“And what do you find?”
“My own manhood!”
“What does that mean?” she cried, jeering.
“If you looked, and found your own womanhood, you would know.”
“But I have my own womanhood!” she cried.
“And then—when you find your own manhood—your womanhood,” he went on, smiling faintly at her—“then you know it is not your own, to do as you like with. You don’t have it of your own will. It comes from—from the middle—from the God. Beyond me, at the middle, is the God. And the God gives me my manhood, then leaves me to it. I have nothing but my manhood. The God gives it me, and leaves me to do further.”
Kate would not hear any more. She broke off into banalities.