“Then will the manliest and best of men continue to be captured by the best and simplest of women? It will produce a better race, I suppose. If I had been your mother you would not be half what you are. It is enough for the man to have the brain, I suppose. We are a forced growth and abnormal—but what is to become of us?”
His reserve left him then and he caught her in his arms. She clung to him desperately, and for a while forgot that the victory was still to be won. Then she cried, and coaxed, and pleaded, and lavished endearment, and was far more difficult for the man to combat than when he had stood his ground with a brain alone.
“Come,” he said finally; “can’t you understand? You might help me a little. Can’t you see that I want to let everything go and stay with you? Don’t you think I know what I should find with you? You do know that? Well, then, you should also know that I have made up my mind to do the only decent thing a man could do.”
“Well, give me a month longer. Let me have that much, at least.”
“I shall go to-morrow. If I go now all these people will quickly forget me, and regard what has passed between us as one of your flirtations. But if I stayed on I should make you ridiculous, and perhaps compromise you—you are so reckless. And for other reasons the sooner I get away from here the better.”
“What are the other reasons?”
“We’ve discussed the subject enough. Come, let us go.”
“I never knew that a man could be so obstinate with a beautiful woman he loved.”
“You have a woman’s general knowledge of men, but you know nothing of any type you haven’t encountered. I believe you could make any man love you; but certain men are greater cowards before certain inherited principles than they are before the prospect of parting from the woman they most love——”
“I said that you were the victim of traditions.”