Geoffrey shrugged. "She will live her life stories, not write them."
"Why not?"
"Because we men don't let such women live their own lives. We demand their service and the inspiration of their sympathy. And so we won't let them achieve. We make them light our torches. We are selfish beasts, you know, in the last analysis."
He laughed and rose. "I'll see a specialist. But nobody shall make me stop writing. Not till I have scribbled 'Finis' to my manuscript."
"It isn't well to defy nature."
"Defiance is better than submission. Nature's a cruel jade. You know that. In the end she gets us all. That's why I hate the country. It's there that we see Nature unmasked. I stayed three weeks at a farm last summer, and from morning to night murder went on. A cat killed a cardinal, and a blue jay killed a grosbeak. One of the servants shot a squirrel. And when I walked out one morning to see the sheep, a lamb was gone and we had a roast with mint sauce for dinner. For lunch we had the squirrel in a stew. A hawk swept down upon the chickens, and all that escaped we ate later fried, with cream gravy."
"In most of your instances man was the offender."
"Well, if man didn't kill, something else would. For every lamb there's a wolf."
"You are looking on only one side of it."
"When you can show me the other I'll believe in it. But not to-day when you tell me that my sun may be blotted out."