Page:Arrowsmith - Sinclair Lewis.pdf/245

 "I wonder if these other lucky lovers that you read about in all this fiction and poetry feel as glum as I do?

"I will not be middle-aged and cautious and monogamic and moral! It's against my religion. I demand the right to be free—

"Hell! These free souls that have to slave at being free are just as bad as their Methodist dads. I have enough sound natural immorality in me so I can afford to be moral. I want to keep my brain clear for work. I don't want it blurred by dutifully running around trying to kiss everybody I can.

"Orchid is too easy. I hate to give up the right of being a happy sinner, but my way was so straight, with just Leora and my work, and I'm not going to mess it. God help any man that likes his work and his wife! He's beaten from the beginning."

He met Orchid at eight-thirty, and the whole matter was unkind. He was equally distasteful of the gallant Martin of two days ago and the prosy cautious Martin of to-night. He went home desolately ascetic, and longed for Orchid all the night.

A week later Leora returned from Wheatsylvania.

He met her at the station.

"It's all right," he said. "I feel a hundred and seven years old. I'm a respectable, moral young man, and Lord how I'd hate it, if it wasn't for my precipitation test and you and— Why do you always lose your trunk check? I suppose I am a bad example for others, giving up so easily. No, no, darling, can't you see; that's the transportation check the conductor gave you!"