I want a man who will come half-way, just half-way, to meet me.”
Don Ramón pondered, and shook his head.
“You are right,” he said. “Yet, in these matters, one never knows what is half-way, nor where it is. A woman who just wants to be taken, and then to cling on, is a parasite. And a man who wants just to take, without giving, is a creature of prey.”
“And I’m afraid Don Cipriano might be that,” said Kate.
“Possibly,” said Ramón. “He is not so with me. But perhaps he would be, if we did not meet—perhaps it is our half-way—in some physical belief that is at the very middle of us, and which we recognise in one another. Don’t you think there might be that between you and him?”
“I doubt if he’d feel it necessary, with a woman. A woman wouldn’t be important enough.”
Ramón was silent.
“Perhaps!” he said. “With a woman, a man always wants to let himself go. And it is precisely with a woman that he should never let himself go. It is precisely with a woman that he should never let himself go, but stick to his innermost belief, and meet her just there. Because when the innermost belief coincides in them both, if it’s physical, there, and then, and nowhere else, they can meet. And it’s no good unless there is a meeting. It’s no good a man ravishing a woman, and it’s absolutely no good a woman ravishing a man. It’s a sin, that is. There is such a thing as sin, and that’s the centre of it. Men and women keep on ravishing one another. Absurd as it may sound, it is not I who would ravish Carlota. It is she who would ravish me. Strange and absurd and