“I am not resigned,” said Josephine. “I’m going to get savage about it, or go mad or something.”

“It’s the greatest mistake for us to stir up each other’s feelings,” said Cromartie rather roughly. “That’s the worst thing we can either of us do, the most unkind thing. No, the only thing for you to do is to forget me, the only hope for me is to forget you.”

“That’s impossible; it’s worse when we don’t see each other,” said Josephine.

Just then they realised that several people had come into the Ape-house and were hesitating to interrupt their conversation.

“It’s a bad business,” said Cromartie, “a damned bad business,” and at these words Josephine went away. He turned away and sat down, but a moment later he heard a loud “Excuse me, Sah. Excuse an intrusion, but I believe, Sah, that your young lady friend’s christian name is Josephine. That is a remarkable coincidence! for my own name, you know, is Joseph. Joseph and Josephine.”

If, on hearing this remark, Mr. Cromartie gave Tennison any encouragement to continue, it was quite accidental. At the moment he was feeling faint, and only by an effort of will continued standing where he was without clutching hold of the bars.

“Are you interested in the girls?” asked the negro. “They come and watch me all the morning, and they do stare so… he, he, he.”

“No, I’m not interested,” said Mr. Cromartie. Nobody could have mistaken the desperate sincerity in his voice.

“I’m glad to hear that,” said Tennison, at once restored to his former heartiness and buoyancy of manner.

“That is how I feel myself, just how I feel. I have no interest in women at all. Only my poor old mammy, my old black mammy, she was of the very best, the very best she was. A mother is the best friend you have through life—the best friend you can make. My mother was ignorant, she could not read, neither could she write, but she knew almost all of the whole Bible by heart, and I first learnt of Salvation from her lips. When I was five years old she taught me the Holy Words of Glory, and I repeated them after her text by text. She was the best friend I shall ever have.

“But other women—no, sir, I have no use for them. They are just a temptation in a man’s life, a temptation to make him forget his true manhood. And the worst of it is that the more you shun them the more they do run after you. That’s a fact.

“No, I am very much safer and better off here shut up alongside of you, with this wire netting and bars to fence off the women, and I guess you feel the same way as I do. Don’t you, Mr. Cromartie?” Cromartie suddenly looked up and saw the person who had been addressing him.

“Who are you?” he asked, and then, looking rather wildly, he walked out of his cage into his back room, where he lay down feeling very exhausted.