"Have you ever seen a young hare, fresh from its kind, run headlong into a snare? Have you ever seen a young man free of the trammels of college, dash into a NET? I did! I wasn't trap-wise!"
He paced the room restlessly, all the self-pity rising in him. He went on: "Good God! what nurslings we are when we first feel our feet! We're like children just loose from the leading-strings. Anything that glitters catches us. Every trap that is set for our unwary feet we drop into. I did. Dropped in. Caught hand and foot—mind and soul."
"Soul?" queried Ethel, with a note of doubt.
"Yes," he answered.
"Don't you mean BODY?" she suggested.
"Body, mind AND soul!" he said, with an air of finality.
"Well, BODY anyway," summed up Ethel.
"And for what?" he went on. "For WHAT? Love! Companionship! That is what we build on in marriage. And what did I realise? Hate and wrangling! Wrangling—just as the common herd, with no advantages, wrangle, and make it a part of their lives—the zest to their union. It's been my curse."
"Why wrangling?" drawled Ethel.
"She didn't understand."