.. But it _can't_ be like that!--Can it? Can't one have
both? Can't a man--love a woman and be her friend and partner all at the
same time?"
"I can't answer for every man," he said reflectively. "There are all
kinds of men. And that's not mentioning the queers, who aren't real men
at all. Take a dozen sound, normal, healthy men and if you could find
out the truth about them, which it would be pretty hard to do, you'd
find immense differences in their wants, habits, feelings; in the way
things _took_ them. But I've a notion that nine out of the dozen, if you
could get down to the actual bedrock facts about them, would own up that
if they were in love with a woman--really, you know, all the way--they
wouldn't want her for a partner, and wouldn't be able to see her as a
friend. That's just a guess, of course. But there's one thing I know,
and that is that I couldn't."
She gave a little shiver. "_Oh_, what a mess it is!" she said. "What a
perfectly hopeless blunder it is!" She slid down from the wall.
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