“In my way of thinking, and in accord with my temperament, the most horrible spiritual suffering I can imagine would be to kiss a woman who endured my kiss.”

“Suppose she fooled you, say for old sake’s sake, or through desire not to hurt you, or pity for you?” Hancock propounded.

“It would be, to me, the unforgivable sin,” came Dick’s reply. “It would not be playing the game — for her. I cannot conceive the fairness, nor the satisfaction, of holding the woman one loves a moment longer than she loves to be held. Leo is very right. The drunken artisan, with his fists, may arouse and keep love alive in the breast of his stupid mate. But the higher human males, the males with some shadow of rationality, some glimmer of spirituality,