The position was impossible, intolerable. She knew
it, but did nothing. Women are like that--endlessly enduring; but men are
not. I dragged him off a horse and thrashed him. He had me to gaol, and
she went her ways, leaving a note for me, hoping I should do well. Do
well! Much she cares what I do. Much care I." He ended with a sob which
was like the cough of a wolf at night, and then turned his face away.
"Why should she care," asked Senhouse, "what becomes of you? By your act
you dropped yourself out of her sphere. If she was to be degraded, as you
call it, by whom was she degraded? But you talk there a language which I
don't understand. You say that she was beautiful, and I suppose you know
what you mean by the word. How then is a beautiful person to be degraded
by anything the likes of you, or your fellow-dog, do to her? The thing's
absurd. You can't claw her soul or blacken the edges of that. You can't
sell that into prostitution or worse. That is her own, and it's that which
makes her beautiful,--in spite of the precious pair of you, bickering and
mauling each other to possess her. Possess her, poor fool! Can you possess
moonlight? If you have degraded anything, you have degraded yourself.
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