dered why. He
was not truthful. He was not moral. This love of beauty which haunted
him seemed much more important than anything else in the world, and his
pursuit of that seemed to fly in the face of everything else which was
established and important. He found that men everywhere did not think
much of a man who was crazy after women. They might joke about an
occasional lapse as an amiable vice or one which could be condoned, but
they wanted little to do with a man who was overpowered by it. There was
a case over in the railroad yard at Speonk recently which he had noted,
of a foreman who had left his wife and gone after some hoyden in White
Plains, and because of this offense he was promptly discharged. It
appeared, though, that before this he had occasionally had such lapses
and that each time he had been discharged, but had been subsequently
forgiven. This one weakness, and no other, had given him a bad
reputation among his fellow railroad men--much as that a drunkard might
have. Big John Peters, the engineer, had expressed it aptly to Eugene
one day when he told him in confidence that "Ed Bowers would go to hell
for his hide," the latter being the local expression for women.
Everybody seemed to pity him, and the man seemed in a way to pity
himself. He had a hang-dog look when he was re-instated, and yet
everybody knew that apart from this he was a fairly competent foreman.
Still it was generally understood that he would never get anywhere.

From that Eugene argued to himself that a man who was cursed with this
peculiar vice could not get anywhere; that he, if he kept it up, would
not. It was like drinking and stealing, and the face of the world was
against it. Very frequently it went hand in hand with those
things--"birds of a feather" he thought. Still he was cursed with it,
and he no more than Ed Bowers appeared to be able to conquer it. At
least he was yielding to it now as he had before. It mattered not that
the women he chose were exceptionally beautiful and fascinating. They
were women, and ought he to want them? He had one. He had taken a solemn
vow to love and cherish her, or at least had gone through the formality
of such a vow, and here he was running about with Carlotta, as he had
with Christina and Ruby before her. Was he not always looking for some
such woman as this? Certainly he was. Had he not far better be seeking
for wealth, distinction, a reputation for probity, chastity, impeccable
moral honor?