Now by a quick
revulsion it seemed to him that he could not endure the success of this
man whose cause he had been pleading.
"Ah!" he cried, bending toward her, "you love him!"
She rose indignantly to her feet.
"Your impertinence is amazing!" she exclaimed. "It is time that
somebody told you the truth. It is hard for me to say unkind things to
one who has saved my life, but you ought to know how you appear. You
have got yourself into a thoroughly unwholesome state of mind and body;
and unless you get out of it you will ruin your whole career. Does it
seem to you that a man who has so little control over himself is a fit
leader for others? Can't you see that you have brooded over this
question of celibacy until you are completely morbid? Find some
wholesome, right-minded woman, Mr. Ashe; love her and marry her, and be
done with all this wretched, unwholesome mawkishness. As for me, when I
married once, I married for life. My son will never be given a second
father."
He had risen also, and his self-possession had returned to him.
"I have annoyed you," he said with a new dignity. "You are perhaps
right in saying that I am morbid, but in what I said to-day I was
trying to put self entirely out of the question.
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