"Sexless, epicene,
undeveloped neuters!" he went on bitterly. He sounded like
Sir Almwroth Wright.
Well--it was hard. He was madly in love with Alima, really;
more so than he had ever been before, and their tempestuous
courtship, quarrels, and reconciliations had fanned the flame.
And then when he sought by that supreme conquest whichseems
so natural a thing to that type of man, to force her to love
him as her master--to have the sturdy athletic furious woman rise
up and master him--she and her friends--it was no wonder he raged.
Come to think of it, I do not recall a similar case in all history
or fiction. Women have killed themselves rather than submit to
outrage; they have killed the outrager; they have escaped; or they
have submitted--sometimes seeming to get on very well with the
victor afterward. There was that adventure of "false Sextus," for
instance, who "found Lucrese combing the fleece, under the midnight
lamp." He threatened, as I remember, that if she did not submit
he would slay her, slay a slave and place him beside her and say
he found him there.
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