He lit a candle, and sat down on the side of his bed.
It was borne in upon him, sitting there in solitary communion with his own unmitigated selfishness, that the man alone is not a human entity.
Ay, Noll; thou art not the only numbskull—the very nations share thy cap and bells. Man is indeed incomplete without the woman. Any scheme of life that eliminates the woman is a futile scheme of life. The human animal is not one, but two—man without woman is wholly incomplete, a crudity, inadequate, a fatuity, and hence a thing of shame.
Nay, the lad had glimmerings into depths deeper than that; gazing at the naked truth of things, it came to him that any scheme of life wherein the woman is made inferior degrades the man with her degradation, since she is a part of him—and a part of a man in a state of humiliation humiliates the whole of him.
He wondered what she was doing; whether they were being kind to the sensitive, large-hearted, dainty Betty.
A sob caught at his throat. He knew—with a hot flush he knew—it was the first generous thought that had moved him these many days. He had been pitying himself like a whipped cur, the which never yet brought a man honour or comfort or dignity.
Wo-hee-ho-ho! moaned the scoffing wind without.
What was she doing—out there—in the dark?
Ah, Noll—what, indeed?
The very shadows bent to hear.