He shook his head sideways and twirled the green umbrella
like an animated halo around his large broad-minded face.
Sir Richmond considered. "Desire has never been the chief
incentive of my relations with women. Never. So far as I can
analyze the thing, it has been a craving for a particular
sort of life giving companionship."
"That I take it is Nature's device to keep the lovers
together in the interest of the more or less unpremeditated
offspring."
"A poor device, if that is its end. It doesn't keep parents
together; more often it tears them apart. The wife or the
mistress, so soon as she is encumbered with children, becomes
all too manifestly not the companion goddess. . . ."
Sir Richmond brooded over his sculls and thought.
"Throughout my life I have been an exceedingly busy man. I
have done a lot of scientific work and some of it has been
very good work. And very laborious work. I've travelled much.
I've organized great business developments. You might think
that my time has been fairly well filled without much
philandering. And all the time, all the time, I've been--
about women--like a thirsty beast looking for water. . . .
Always. Always. All through my life."
Dr. Martineau waited through another silence.
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