h, prestige,
dominance, he was confused, if not chastened by considerations relating
to position, presentability and the like. None the less, the homely
woman meant nothing to him. And the passionate woman meant much. He
heard family discussions of this and that sacrificial soul among women,
as well as among men--women who toiled and slaved for their husbands
or children, or both, who gave way to relatives or friends in crises
or crucial moments, because it was right and kind to do so--but
somehow these stories did not appeal to him. He preferred to think of
people--even women--as honestly, frankly self-interested. He could
not have told you why. People seemed foolish, or at the best very
unfortunate not to know what to do in all circumstances and how to
protect themselves. There was great talk concerning morality, much
praise of virtue and decency, and much lifting of hands in righteous
horror at people who broke or were even rumored to have broken the
Seventh Commandment. He did not take this talk seriously. Already he had
broken it secretly many times. Other young men did. Yet again, he was a
little sick of the women of the streets and the bagnio. There were
too many coarse, evil features in connection with such contacts. For
a little while, the false tinsel-glitter of the house of ill repute
appealed to him, for there was a certain force to its luxury--rich, as
a rule, with red-plush furniture, showy red hangings, some coarse but
showily-framed pictures, and, above all, the strong-bodied or sensuously
lymphatic women who dwelt there, to (as his mother phrased it) prey on
men. The strength of their bodies, the lust of their souls, the fact
that they could, with a show of affection or good-nature, receive man
after man, astonished and later disgusted him. After all, they were not
smart. There was no vivacity of thought there. All that they could do,
in the main, he fancied, was this one thing. He pictured to himself the
dreariness of the mornings after, the stale dregs of things when only
sleep and thought of gain could aid in the least; and more than once,
even at his age, he shook his head. He wanted contact which was more
intimate, subtle, individual, personal.

So came Lillian Semple, who was nothing more to him than the shadow of
an ideal. Yet she cleared up certain of his ideas in regard to women.
She was not physically as vigorous or brutal as those other women
whom he had encountered in the lupanars, thus far-