Very good. Because you are a man, you may court
contamination. Because I am a woman, I may not. Contamination
contaminates, does it not? Then you, what do you here with me? Out
upon you!"
Corliss threw up his hands laughingly. "I give in. You are too much
for me with your formal logic. I can only fall back on the higher
logic, which you will not recognize."
"Which is--"
"Strength. What man wills for woman, that will he have."
"I take you, then, on your own ground," she rushed on. "What of
Lucile? What man has willed that he has had. So you, and all men,
have willed since the beginning of time. So poor Dorsey willed. You
cannot answer, so let me speak something that occurs to me concerning
that higher logic you call strength. I have met it before. I
recognized it in you, yesterday, on the sleds."
"In me?"
"In you, when you reached out and clutched at me. You could not down
the primitive passion, and, for that matter, you did not know it was
uppermost. But the expression on your face, I imagine, was very like
that of a woman-stealing cave-man. Another instant, and I am sure you
would have laid violent hands upon me."
"Then I ask your pardon. I did not dream--"
"There you go, spoiling it all! I--I quite liked you for it. Don't
you remember, I, too, was a cave-woman, brandishing the whip over your
head?
"But I am not done with you yet, Sir Doubleface, even if you have
dropped out of the battle.
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