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 she pursued the even tenor of her way; and I
found the