Women were terrible creatures, and the love-germ was especially plentiful in their neighborhood.
And they were so reckless, so devoid of fear.

THEY were not frightened by what had happened to the Virgin.

They held out their arms to him more seductively than ever.

Even without his fortune, reckoned as a mere man, just past thirty, magnificently strong and equally good-looking and good-natured, he was a prize for most normal women.
But when to his natural excellences were added the romance that linked with his name and the enormous wealth that was his, practically every free woman he encountered measured him with an appraising and delighted eye, to say nothing of more than one woman who was not free.

Other men might have been spoiled by this and led to lose their heads; but the only effect on him was to increase his fright.