defy
only when our desires overcame the resistance of our synapses, and even
then not until we should have exhausted every legal and conventional
means.

A superman with a wife and family he had acquired before a great passion
has made him a superman is in rather a predicament, especially if he
be one who has achieved such superhumanity as he possesses not by
challenging laws and conventions, but by getting around them. My wife
and family loved me; and paradoxically I still had affection for them,
or thought I had. But the superman creed is, "be yourself, realize
yourself, no matter how cruel you may have to be in order to do so." One
trouble with me was that remnants of the Christian element of pity still
clung to me. I would be cruel if I had to, but I hoped I shouldn't have
to: something would turn up, something in the nature of an intervening
miracle that would make it easy for me. Perhaps Maude would take the
initiative and relieve me.... Nancy had appealed for a justifying
doctrine, and it was just what I didn't have and couldn't evolve. In the
meanwhile it was quite in character that I should accommodate myself to
a situation that might well be called anomalous.

This "accommodation" was not unaccompanied by fever. My longing to
realize my love for Nancy kept me in a constant state of tension--of
"nerves"; for our relationship had merely gone one step farther, we
had reached a point where we acknowledged that we loved each other, and
paradoxically halted there; Nancy clung to her demand for new sanctions
with a tenacity that amazed and puzzled and often irritated me. And yet,
when I look back upon it all, I can see that some of the difficulty
lay with me: if she had her weakness--which she acknowledged--I had
mine--and kept it to myself. It was part of my romantic nature not to
want to break her down. Perhaps I loved the ideal better than the woman
herself, though that scarcely seems possible.

We saw each other constantly. And though we had instinctively begun to
be careful, I imagine there was some talk among our acquaintances. It is
to be noted that the gossip never became riotous, for we had always
been friends, and Nancy had a saving reputation for coldness. It seemed
incredible that Maude had not discovered my secret, but if she knew
of it, she gave no sign of her knowledge. Often, as I looked at her, I
wished she would. I can think of no more expressive sentence in regard
to her than the trite one that