“God knows; but He does not put promises there for nothing. It’s all outside their reach now. Now Nature is taking a hand—cruel, tempting, thrilling old Nature. She’s found the untried subject, and is whispering her thousand impulses in his ear. Take your mind back, Quiltan. Can’t you remember how it was? Can’t you recall the first pretty face you kissed, for no better reason than a whisper of Nature’s that today it would be different from what it had been before. And wasn’t it different? And didn’t Nature whisper to you that night of a thousand other differences? And didn’t you tremble and wonder, and wasn’t curiosity alive in you? Oh, man, it comes to all of us sooner or later, and the later it comes the more devil there is to pay. A boy is young enough to be afraid and old enough to live clean; but a man is not afraid, and when his passions come to life they rule him through and through, and no damned power on earth can turn them aside.”
“There isn’t much hope, then, for her.”
“It looks like that. But we’ve got to try.”
“Are you going to see him?”
“Not for an instant.”
“Then what?”
“Don’t know. Perhaps something will turn up. But you’ll give her her chance?”
Quiltan hesitated.
“Come on, man!”
“Very well.”