Chapter CLV: Section 5: He went back to the house, and after some search he found

Corydon down in the woods, whither she had fled to have out her agony.

“Has that woman gone?” she panted, when he came near.

“Yes, dear,” he said. “She’s gone.”

“Oh!” cried Corydon. “How dared she! How dared she!”

“Get up, sweetheart,” said Thyrsis. “The ground is wet.”

“She’s gone off in her automobile!” exclaimed the girl, passionately. “She spent last night at a hotel that charged twelve dollars a day, and then she told me about her washerwoman! Now she’s gone back to her beautiful home, with servants and a governess and a piano and everything else she wants! And she talked to me about ‘occupation’! What _right_ had she to come here and trample on my face?”

“But why did you let her, dearest?”

“How could I _help_ myself? I had no idea--”

“But how did you get started?”

“I’ve nobody to confide in--nobody!” cried Corydon. “And she wanted to know about me--she led me on. I thought she sympathized with me--I thought she understood!”

“She’s a woman of the world, my dear.”

“She was just pulling me to pieces! She wanted to see how I worked! Don’t you see what she was looking for, Thyrsis--she thought I was _material!_”

“She only writes about the Greeks,” said Thyrsis, with a smile.

“I’m a horrible example! I’m neurasthenic and self-centred--I’m the modern woman! She read me a long lecture like that! I ought to get busy!”

“Dearest!” he pleaded, trying to soothe her.

“Busy”! repeated Corydon, laughing hysterically. “Busy! I wash and dress and amuse a baby! I get six meals a day for him, I get three meals for us, and clean up everything. And the rest of the day I’m so exhausted I can hardly stand up, and a good part of the time I’m sick besides. And then, if I think about my troubles, it’s because I’ve nothing to do!”

“My dear,” Thyrsis replied, “you should not have put yourself at her mercy.”

“How I hate her!” cried Corydon. “How I _hate_ her!”

“You must learn to protect yourself from such people, Corydon.”

“I won’t meet them at all! I’m not able to face them--I’ve none of their weapons, none of their training. I don’t want to know about them, or their kind of life! They have no souls!”

“It isn’t easy for them to understand,” said Thyrsis. “They have never been poor--”

“That woman talks about the Greek love of beauty! What sacrifice has she ever made for beauty--what agony has she ever dared for it? And yet she can prattle about it--the phrases roll from her! She’s been educated--polished--finished! She’s been taught just what to say! And I haven’t been taught, and so she despises me!”

“It’s deeper than that, my dear,” he said. “You have something in you that she would hate instinctively.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve told you before, dearest. It’s genius, I think.

“Genius! But what use is it to me, if it is? It only unfits me for life. It eats me up, it destroys me!”

“Some day,” he said, “you will find a way to express it. It will come, never fear.--But now, dear, be sensible. The ground is wet, and if you sit there, you will surely be laid up with rheumatism.”

He lifted her up; but she was not to be diverted. Suddenly she turned, and caught him by the arms. “Thyrsis!” she cried. “Tell me! Do you blame me as she does? Do you think I’m weak and incompetent?”

Whatever answer he might have been inclined to make, he saw in her wild eyes that only one answer was to be thought of. “Certainly not, my dear!” he said, quickly. “How could you ask me such a question?”

“Oh, tell me! tell me!” she exclaimed. And so he had to go on, and sing the song of their love to her, and pour out balm upon her wounded spirit.

But afterwards he went alone; and then it was not so simple. Little demons of doubt came and tormented him. Might it not be that there was something in the point of view of the Channings? He took Corydon at her own estimate--at the face value of her emotions; but might it not be that he was deluding himself, that he was a victim of his own infatuation?

He would ponder this; he tried to have it out with himself for once. What did he really think about it? What would he have told Corydon if he had told her the bald truth? But such doubts could not stay with him for long. They brought shame to him. He was like a man travelling across the plains, who comes upon the woman he loves, being tortured by a band of Apaches; and who is caught and bound fast, to watch the proceedings. Would such a man spend his time asking whether the woman was weak and incompetent? No--his energies would be given to getting his arms loose, and finding out where the guns were. He would set her free, and give her a chance; and then it would be time enough to measure her powers and pass judgment upon her.