One of this group took Thyrsis driving, and was led to talk. Here was
a youth whose father was the president of a great manufacturing-enterprise,
and supplied him with unlimited funds; which money the boy used to
divert himself in the pursuit of young women. Sometimes he had stooped
so low as manicure-girls and shop-clerks and stenographers; but for
the most part he sought actresses and chorus-girls--they had more
intelligence and spirit, he explained, they were harder to win. He
had his way with them, partly because he was handsome and clever, but
mainly because he was the keeper of the keys of opportunity. It was
his to dispense auto-rides and champagne-suppers, and flowers and
jewels, and all things else that were desirable in life.

Thyrsis was appalled at the hardness and the utter ruthlessness of
this man--he saw him as a young savage turned loose to prey in a
civilized community. He had the most supreme contempt for his
victims--that was what they were made for, and he paid them their
price. Nor was this just because they were women, it was a matter of
class; the young man had a mother and sisters, to whom he applied
quite other standards. But Thyrsis found himself wondering how long,
with this contagion raging among the fathers and the sons, it would
be possible to keep the mothers and the daughters sterilized.

Section 9. These discoveries came one by one; but Thyrsis saw enough
at the outset to make it clear that the time had come for him to
gird up his loins. The choice of Hercules was before him; and he did
not intend that the course of his life was to be decided by these
cravings of the animal within him.

From the grosser sorts of temptation he was always saved by the