“‘The woman who shrinks from motherhood is as low a creature as a man of the professional pacifist, or poltroon, type, who shirks his duty as a soldier.
“‘The only full life for man or woman is led by those men and women who together, with hearts both gentle and valiant, face lives of love and duty, who see their children rise up to call them blessed, and who leave behind them their seed to inherit the earth.
“‘No celibate life approaches such a life in usefulness. The mother comes ahead of the nun.
“‘But if the average woman does not marry and become the mother of enough healthy children to permit the increase of the race; and if the average man does not marry in times of peace and do his full duty in war if need arises, then the race is decadent and should be swept aside to make room for a better one.
“‘Only that nation has a future whose sons and daughters recognise and obey the primary laws of their racial being!’”
He closed the book and laid it on the piano.
“Now,” he said, “either we’re really a rotten and decadent race, and might as well behave like one, or we’re sound and sane.”
Something unusual in his voice––in the sudden grim whiteness of his face––disturbed Palla.
“I want you to marry me,” he said. “You care for no other man. And if you don’t love me enough to do it, you’ll learn to afterward.”
“Jim,” she said gently, and now rather white herself, 246 “that is an outrageous thing to say to me. Don’t you realise it?”