That was too definite for Channing, and he went off on another tack. He had been reading “The Higher Cannibalism”, and he could not forgive it. A boy of Thyrsis’ age had no right to be seething with such bitterness; there must be some fundamental and terrible cause. He was destroying himself, he was eating out his heart in this isolation; he was so wrapped up in his own miseries, his own wrongs—in all the concerns of his own exaggerated ego!
They were seated beside a little streamlet in the woods. “What you need is something to get you out of yourself,” the critic was saying—“something to restore your sanity and balance. It’ll come to you some day. Perhaps it’ll be a love-affair—you’ll meet some woman who’ll carry you away. I know the sort you need—they grow in the West—the great brooding type of woman-soul, that would fold you in her arms and give you a little peace.”
Thyrsis was silent for a space. “You forget,” he said, in a low voice, “that I am already married.”
The other shrugged his shoulders. “Such things have happened, even so,” he said.
Thyrsis had taken his part in the conversation before this, defending himself and setting forth his point of view. But now he fell silent. The words had cut him to the quick. It seemed to him an insult and a bitter humiliation; here, at his home, almost in the presence of his wife! What was the man’s idea, anyway?
And suddenly he turned upon Channing with the question, “You think that I’ve married a doll?”
The other was staggered for a moment. “I don’t know what you’ve married,” he replied.
“No,” said Thyrsis. “Then how can you advise me in such a matter?”
“I see that you’re not happy—” the other began.
“Yes,” said the boy. “But I don’t want any more women.”