It
was a record of bodily abuse, of passion and temptation, which few men
may live to tell, but Mic-co neither condoned nor condemned. He smoked
and listened.
"Let us make a compact," he said with his quiet smile. "I may question
without reserve. You may withhold what you will. That is fair?"
"Yes."
"Have you ever endured hardship of any kind?"
"I have hunted in the Arctics," said Carl. "There was a time when food
failed. We lived for weeks on reindeer moss and rock tripe. I have
been in wild territory with naturalists and hunters. Probably I have
known more adventurous hardship than most men."
Mic-co nodded.
"I fancied so," he said. "What is your favorite painting?" he asked
unexpectedly.
The answer came without an instant's hesitation.
"Paul Potter's 'Bull.'"
"A thing of inherent virility and vigor, intensely masculine!" said
Mic-co with a smile, adding after an interval of thought, "but there is
a danger in over-sexing--"
"I have sometimes thought so. The over-masculine man is too brutal."
"And the over-feminine woman?"
"Kindly, sentimental, helpless and weak. I have lived with such an
aunt since I was fifteen. No, I beg of you, do not misunderstand me!
I blame nothing upon her. Like many good women whose minds are blocked
off in conventional squares, she is very loyal and sympathetic--and
very trying.
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