he married her today
he would have to live with her all the rest of his days. He knew that
was the generally accepted interpretation of marriage, but it did not
appeal to him. Union ought in his estimation to be based on a keen
desire to live together and on nothing else. He did not feel the
obligation which attaches to children, for he had never had any and did
not feel the desire for any. A child was a kind of a nuisance. Marriage
was a trick of Nature's by which you were compelled to carry out her
scheme of race continuance. Love was a lure; desire a scheme of
propagation devised by the way. Nature, the race spirit, used you as you
would use a work-horse to pull a load. The load in this case was race
progress and man was the victim. He did not think he owed anything to
nature, or to this race spirit. He had not asked to come here. He had
not been treated as generously as he might have been since he arrived.
Why should he do what nature bid?

When he met Angela he kissed her fondly, for of course the sight of her
aroused the feeling of desire which had been running in his mind so
keenly for some time. Since last seeing Angela he had touched no woman,
principally because the right one had not presented herself and because
the memories and the anticipations in connection with Angela were so
close. Now that he was with her again the old fire came over him and he
was eager for the completion of the ceremony. He had seen to the
marriage license in the morning,--and from the train on which Angela and
Marietta arrived they proceeded in a carriage direct to the Methodist
preacher. The ceremony which meant so much to Angela meant practically
nothing to him. It seemed a silly formula--this piece of paper from the
marriage clerk's office and this instructed phraseology concerning
"love, honor and cherish." Certainly he would love, honor and cherish if
it were possible--if not, then not. Angela, with the marriage ring on
her finger and the words "with this ring I thee wed" echoing in her
ears, felt that all her dreams had come true. Now she was, really,
truly, Mrs. Eugene Witla. She did not need to worry about drowning
herself, or being disgraced, or enduring a lonely, commiserated old age.
She was the wife of an artist--a rising one, and she was going to live
in New York. What a future stretched before her! Eugene loved her after
all. She imagined she could see that. His slowness in marrying her was
due to the difficulty of esta