The very question sobered him.
Suddenly it was as though he had left the din of the noisy thoroughfare of life and had entered the majestic silence of a mighty cathedral; and from the great mysterious deeps a whisper came to his ears, each syllable roundly phrased, clear, unhesitating, a chapter of this strange book of life that he had so lately read—the book that had fired his blood and aroused his energy. The breath of these pages seemed to give him decision and free air, where before he had been drifting aimlessly, going he knew not whither, caring not overmuch. This book had braced him—it was a call to battle. He had had enough of beds of roses and daffodils and idyllic trances. The phrasing of The Masterfolk came to him now:
“Nature has ordered that certain things shall be; and to him who disobeys her ordering she is cruelly merciless. She has decreed that he shall be most dominant, shall breed the fittest race, shall know the fullest life, shall achieve the highest destiny, who abides by the woman he loves. And him who is unclean she flings upon the dunghill—him and his seed for ever. Of the love of man for woman, Nature has spoken with no uncertain voice; and Nature’s judgment is final. He that fears to love a woman sets himself against the supreme law of life; he ends in unnatural vice; he is against the design of life; celibacy Nature will none of—for celibacy stultifies life and ends the race. Promiscuous love she condemns utterly and punishes heavily with loathsome disease and with foul decay; the races of promiscuous love are become of the scum of the earth, and are dying out. Against the love of many women also, once and for all, she has spoken. The peoples of many wives Nature is sweeping into the waste corners of the world. Nature is her own jury—Nature alone her own judge. She hath not said the Masterfolk cannot break from her ordering, but that they shall not. On every breach of her vigorous laws Nature waits with weaponed hand. At the elbow of every vice stands foul-breathed disease.
There is no sin in the love of man and woman. The woman has committed no sin in loving—she has but accepted the overwhelming urging of life. It is her chiefest glory. Man has committed no sin in loving; his life has ordered it; and the Masterfolk obey life. It is his chiefest glory. Who so glum a dullard but smiles to see lovers meeting! But he sins foully who is guilty of the repudiation—foully against the woman, criminally against his race, blasphemously against his godhood, and damnably against his manhood. Such are not of the Masterfolk.
They of the inferior manhood, lacking in the force of character necessary to the full acceptance of the duties of the Masterfolk in love, have not the virile force to abide by a woman of the Masterfolk; and these come out when the lamps are lit and there are shadows in the land, and skulk about the by-lanes, and commit mean adulteries with frail women, and have the habit of repudiating debt. Such cannot breed the Masterfolk. They shall not. For these cower from the strengthening risks that dog a strenuous life; they would have the delight of marriage without the courage....”
Noll opened the window.
There came from the street below the hoarse cry of a prostitute.
He went into the room, lit a candle, and sat down at his desk. Everything in the place whispered of Betty this night.
He wrote a letter:
“Dear Madelaine,
I am called home.
I leave my rooms and all in them to your care, knowing that they will be in good hands. I leave you also all the money I can spare, to keep you in decency and comfort until I return.
I shall send, early in the day, for the large leather bag which you will find labelled and ready by the door.
Noll.”