“A shadow, Paul.... There is no woman in your life—no child—no care but for self. What does a childless, mateless man know of life? He has not taken up its most initial gifts. He avoids its responsibilities, its risks, its pains, its debt to God and man. Why should he expect, or even hope for, the joys of life? Who can know real delight who shirks the winning—or who shall find happiness that shrinks from sorrows?”
He shrugged his shoulders impatiently:
“Why should I become a part of the crowd?” he asked with contempt.
“You cannot turn your back on your fellows—unless you are to grow an orchard of dead-sea apples,” she said.
He sat silent for awhile.
He gazed perplexedly at his ambitions:
“I have made a career—have won its prizes. Until to-night I considered myself an object of envy.... I am an object of envy.”
“Tush!” she said. “Better be a microbe than a loveless man.”
She laughed—but at the sight of his wrecked self-esteem falling about his wretched hunched shoulders the laughter left her eyes.
She leaned forward: