He let go her shoulders, swung away, and said: “There's just one thing to do. I'll call a taxi.” He moved to the telephone, rummaged through the directory, still talking, the flood of feeling that had for months been impounded within his emotionally inarticulate self rushing now past all barriers, sweeping every last protesting reticence before it. “I do understand, Sue. What you feel now is as deep an urge, almost, as this old sex impulse that muddles life so for all Of us. It is what has driven millions of women into nunneries--to get away from life. Just as our Village freedom is a protest against, unhealthy suppression and rigidity, so these fevers of self-abnegation are inevitable uprushings of protest against animalism.” He had found the number now. He lifted the receiver. “It's Puritan against Cavalier--both right and both wrong! What number--Oh, I beg your pardon! Bryant six thousand. It's the Greeks against the Greatest of Jews--both right--both wrong! Taxi, please! Right away. Two-thousand-twenty-six Tenth Street. All right. Good-by. Beauty against duty--the instinct to express against the instinct to serve--both right, both wrong!”
He confronted her again; caught up her two hands and gripped them within his own. “You've had your little fling at expression, Sue. You were wonderful. You've set flowers growing in our hearts, and thank God for flowers! But life has trapped, you. You've swung over to service. And now you've got to go through, work your way out of it. God knows where you'll land. But if you've counted on my steadiness, by God, you may continue to count or it!”
He pressed her hands to his lips; kissed her knuckles, her fingers, her palms; then dropped them.
Sue sank into the armchair, very white. The tears ran down her cheeks. The Worm could not look at her; after a moment of aimless pacing, he went out to the front steps of the building and, bareheaded, still coatless, watched for the taxi. He helped carry out the big trunk. On the ride to the ferry he spoke only trivialities, and Sue spoke not at all. He did not cross the river with her; merely, there in the ferry house, gripped her hand--smiling after a fashion, limp of spirit (for the first great emotional uprush of his life seemed to have passed like a wave) and said: