"Nothing, in years.... Because I won’t let ’em. But the spectacle of the world suddenly crawling with women, all swarming restlessly over the face of the globe, not knowing why or whither—it appalls me, Jim. And we men continue flinging at them everything we can think of to stop them, quiet them, and keep them still—personal liberty, franchise, political opportunity, professional and industrial chances—and still they twist and wriggle and squirm and swarm over everything restlessly, slowly becoming denatured, unsexed, more sterile, more selfish, insolent, intolerable every day. They are the universal nuisance of the age; they are slowly smothering us as shifting dunes threaten the fertile plain——" "For heaven’s sake——" "There’s the unvarnished truth about woman," insisted Belter. "She’s got the provocative câlinerie of a cat; the casual insouciance of a sparrow; the nesting and hatching instinct of the hen; the mindless jealousy of a Pekingese. "The creative mind that marries one of ’em is doomed either to sterility or to anguish. Their jealousy and malice stultify and slay the male brain; there is no arguing with them because they have no real mind to appeal to, no logic, no reason. Like the horrible praying Mantis they suffer the embrace of the male and immediately begin to eat him, commencing with the head——" Cleland began to laugh. His mirth, unrestrained, did not disturb Belter, who continued to eat his club sandwich and wash it down with huge draughts of Pilsner. "Do you think I’d marry one of ’em?" he demanded scornfully. "Do you know what really happened to Clarence Verne?" "No." "Well, he married a dainty little thing and expected to continue earning two thousand dollars for every magazine cover he designed. And do you know what happened?" "No, I don’t." "I’ll tell you. The dainty little thing turned jealous, hired a shyster who hired detectives to follow Verne about and report to her what he did inside and outside his studio. She doped his food when she thought he had a rendezvous; she had his letters stolen. In his own world, any woman he found agreeable was cut out by his wife; if, in the jolly and unconventional fellowship of Bohemia, he ever stopped on the street to chat with a pretty girl or took one, harmlessly, to lunch or supper, or offered any of ’em tea in his studio, her detectives reported it to her and she raised hell. "It killed spontaneity, any gaiety of heart, any incentive in Verne. It embittered him, aged him, strangled him. Look at his work to-day! Nothing remains except the mechanical technique. Look at the man. Dead in his bathroom. Don’t talk to me about women." "Why didn’t he divorce her if he knew of all this she was doing?"