Thyrsis sat mute.
“You see!” said the other, laughing. “The girl is in love with you, and you haven’t sense enough to know it.”
Again Thyrsis could find no words. “But if we had a child it would ruin us!” he cried, wildly. “I’ve not a cent, and my whole career’s at stake!”
“Well,” said the other, “if it’s as bad as that, don’t have any children yet.”
“But—but how can we?”
“Don’t you know how to control it?”
Thyrsis was staring at him, open-eyed. “Why, no!” he said.
“Good lord!” laughed the other. “Where have you been keeping yourself?”
And then the doctor proceeded to explain to him the “artificial sterilization of marriage.” No whisper of such a thing had ever come to the boy before, and he could hardly credit his ears. But the doctor spoke of it as a man of the world, to whom it was a matter of course; he went into detail as to the various methods that people used. And when finally Thyrsis rose to leave he patted him indulgently on the shoulder, and laughed, “Go home to your wife, my boy!”
Section 7. The effect of this conversation upon Thyrsis was alarming to him. At first he tried to put the thing aside, as being something utterly inconceivable between him and Corydon. But it would not be put aside.