Yes, the governor funks
facing women."
"One woman?" interjected Schomberg in guttural tones.
"One may be more awkward to deal with than two, or two hundred, for that
matter. In a place that's full of women you needn't look at them unless
you like; but if you go into a room where there is only one woman, young
or old, pretty or ugly, you have got to face her. And, unless you are
after her, then--the governor is right enough--she's in the way."
"Why notice them?" muttered Schomberg. "What can they do?"
"Make a noise, if nothing else," opined Mr. Ricardo curtly, with the
distaste of a man whose path is a path of silence; for indeed, nothing
is more odious than a noise when one is engaged in a weighty and
absorbing card game. "Noise, noise, my friend," he went on forcibly;
"confounded screeching about something or other, and I like it no more
than the governor does. But with the governor there's something else
besides. He can't stand them at all."
He paused to reflect on this psychological phenomenon, and as no
philosopher was at hand to tell him that there is no strong sentiment
without some terror, as there is no real religion without a little
fetishism, he emitted his own conclusion, which surely could not go to
the root of the matter.
"I'm hanged if I don't think they are to him what liquor is to me.
Brandy--pah!"
He made a disgusted face, and produced a genuine shudder.
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