ie
weakened. The times grew more frequent with him when he doubted the
social side of anarchism itself--when this social propaganda seemed as
hollow and as unlovely as society itself; and when he saw the weaknesses
and vanities of his associates, how far they were from realising any
ideal. Then, more and more, he was thrown back upon himself, for as his
hope in the new society weakened, his hope in Marie as an embodiment of
it weakened also.

Marie's sex interests, always freely and boldly expressed, played, at
first, no part in the growing irritability of their relations. Marie's
occasional "affairs" with other men, sometimes taking her away from the
salon for a time, were taken by Terry in silence. Even when he came face
to face with the fact of Marie's absence of restraint in this respect,
lack of delicacy and feeling for him, he did not complain. To do so was
against his principles of personal freedom; and the fling in the face of
society envolved in Marie's conduct pleased him rather than otherwise;
also there was in him a subtle feeling of superiority over other men, in
the fact that he was without physiological jealousy, or if not, that he
could at least control it.

Even Marie's jealousy of him, whenever he was in the society of another
woman, he took with a patient shrug. Terry's interest in other women was
not a passionate one: in it was always an element of the pale cast of
thought, and Marie had no real cause for jealousy. But Terry tolerantly
took it as a feminine weakness and tried to shield Marie from this
unreasonable unhappiness. On her account he gave up many a desire to
talk intimately with some female comrade. But Marie had no such
tolerance for him. Not only was she quite free with other men and to the
limit, but she often went into a real tantrum of jealousy. One day she
followed Terry all over town, fearing that he had an appointment with a
well-known radical woman. Marie often acknowledged to me her
inconsistency. "But, you know," she would say, "our principles and ideas
do not count much when our fundamental emotions are concerned."

This was a true remark of Marie's, and I have often had occasion to
perceive the great degree of it throughout the radical world. Men and
women often try in that society to be tolerant; they give one another
free rein sometimes for years, but generally in the end, the resistance
of one or the other weakens; human nature or prejudice, whichever it is,
asserts itse