"Really! YOU think her so! And SHE thinks you so! Quite a mutual admiration society! And both of you obsessed by the same one man! I pity that man! The only thing for him to do is to keep out of it! No, Manella!--think as you like, she is not beautiful. You ARE beautiful. But SHE is clever, You are NOT clever. You may thank God for that! SHE is outrageously, unnaturally, cursedly clever! And her cleverness makes her see the sham of life all through; the absurdity of birth that ends in death--the freakishness of civilisation to no purpose--and she's out for something else. She wants some thing newer than sex-attraction and family life. A husband would bore her to extinction--the care of children would send her into a lunatic asylum!"
Manella looked bewildered.
"I cannot understand!" she said--"A woman lives for husband and children!"
"SOME women do!" he answered--"Not all! There are a good few who don't want to stay on the animal level. Men try to keep them there--but it's a losing game nowadays. ('Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests'--but we cannot fail to see that when Mother Fox has reared her puppies she sends them off about their own business and doesn't know them any more--likewise Mother Bird does the same. Nature has no sentiment.) We have, because we cultivate artificial feelings--we imagine we 'love,' when we only want something that pleases us for the moment. To live, as you say, for husband and children would make a woman a slave--a great many women are slaves--but they are beginning to get emancipated--the woman with the gold hair, whom you so much admire, is emancipated."
Manella gave a slight disdainful movement of her head.
"That only means she is free to do as she likes"--she said--"To marry or not to marry--to love or not to love. I think if she loved at all, she would love very greatly. Why did she go so secretly in the evening to see you? I suppose she loves you!"
A sudden red flush of anger coloured his brow.
"Yes"--he answered with a kind of vindictive slowness--"I suppose she does! You, Manella, are after me as a man merely--she is after me as a Brain! You would steal my physical liberty,--she would steal my innermost thought! And you will both be disappointed! Neither my body nor my brain shall ever be dominated by any woman!"
He turned from her abruptly and began the ascent that led to his solitary retreat. Once he looked back-"Don't let me see you for two days at least!" he called--"I've more than enough food to keep me going."