Remembering Flora de Barral in the depths of moral misery, and Roderick

Anthony carried away by a gust of tempestuous tenderness, I asked myself,

Is it all forgotten already? What could they have found to estrange them

from each other with this rapidity and this thoroughness so far from all

temptations, in the peace of the sea and in an isolation so complete that

if it had not been the jealous devotion of the sentimental Franklin

stimulating the attention of Powell, there would have been no record, no

evidence of it at all.

I must confess at once that it was Flora de Barral whom I suspected. In

this world as at present organized women are the suspected half of the

population. There are good reasons for that. These reasons are so

discoverable with a little reflection that it is not worth my while to

set them out for you. I will only mention this: that the part falling to

women's share being all "influence" has an air of occult and mysterious

action, something not altogether trustworthy like all natural forces

which, for us, work in the dark because of our imperfect comprehension.

If women were not a force of nature, blind in its strength and capricious

in its power, they would not be mistrusted. As it is one can't help it.

You will say that this force having been in the person of Flora de Barral

captured by Anthony . . . Why yes. He had dealt with her masterfully.

But man has captured electricity too. It lights him on his way, it warms

his home, it will even cook his dinner for him--very much like a woman.

But what sort of conquest would you call it? He knows nothing of it. He

has got to be mighty careful what he is about with his captive. And the

greater the demand he makes on it in the exultation of his pride the more

likely it is to turn on him and burn him to a cinder . . . "

"A far-fetched enough parallel," I observed coldly to Marlow. He had

returned to the arm-chair in the shadow of the bookcase. "But accepting

the meaning you have in your mind it reduces itself to the knowledge of

how to use it. And if you mean that this ravenous Anthony--"

"Ravenous is good," interrupted Marlow. "He was a-hungering and

a-thirsting for femininity to enter his life in a way no mere feminist

could have the slightest conception of. I reckon that this accounts for

much of Fyne's disgust with him. Good little Fyne. You have no idea

what infernal mischief he had worked during his call at the hotel. But

then who could have suspected Anthony of being a heroic creature. There

are several kinds of heroism and one of them at least is idiotic. It is

the one which wears the aspect of sublime delicacy. It is apparently the

one of which the son of the delicate poet was capable.




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