Deep in the nature of the human male is a fount of polygamous pride. Mr. Preemby in these novel circumstances was proud and disingenuous. He believed himself “carrying on” with two girls at once, and it seemed to him to be a very splendid situation. But indeed it was not so much a case of carrying on as of being carried off. In the American world of emotional imaginations there is an ideal called the Cave Man, much cherished by quiet, unaggressive women because its realization would involve so little trouble on their own part. The Cave Man is supposed to seize and grip and carry off and adore. In this simple love story of Mr. Preemby’s Miss Hossett played the Cave Man’s rôle, up to the carrying-off point at any rate. On the first occasion of their being alone together she drew him to her and kissed him on the mouth with a warmth and an intensity and thoroughness that astonished and overwhelmed Mr. Preemby. It was quite different from Meeta’s coy achievements, or anything he had ever met around Norwich. He had not known that there was such kissing.
And in the warm summer twilight Mr. Preemby found himself being carried off to a lonely piece of beach to Spoon with Chris Hossett. The light of a rising full moon mingled with the afterglow; pebbles shone out like gems and stars. He carried himself bravely but he was all atremble. He knew that this time the enterprises would not come from him. And the Spooning of Chris Hossett was no more like the Spooning of Meeta than a furnace glow is like the light of the moon.
“I love you,” said Chris as though that justified anything, and as they stumbled homeward at an hour that Mr. Preemby called “feefully late,” she said: “You’re going to marry me aren’t you? You’ve got to marry me now. And then we can really make love. ’Soften as we like.”
“I can’t rightly say that I’m exactly in a position to keep a wife just at present,” said Mr. Preemby.
“I don’t see that there’s any necessity for me to ask a man to keep me,” said Miss Hossett. “You’re a wonder, Teddy, anyhow, and I’m going to marry you. It’s got to be, and there you are.”
“But ’ow can I marry you?” asked Mr. Preemby almost peevishly—for he was really very tired.
“One would think to hear you that no one had ever married before,” said Chris Hossett. “And besides—after this—you must.”
“Mind you I’ve got to go back to Norwich next Tuesday,” said Mr. Preemby.
“You ought to have thought of that before,” she said.
“But I’ll lose my situation.”