And further, to like, with Frona Welse, did not mean to love.
First, and above all, Vance Corliss was drawn to Frona Welse because of the clamor within him for a return to the soil.

In him the elements were so mixed that it was impossible for women many times removed to find favor in his eyes.

Such he had met constantly, but not one had ever drawn from him a superfluous heart-beat.

Though there had been in him a growing instinctive knowledge of lack of unity,--the lack of unity which must precede, always, the love of man and woman,--not one of the daughters of Eve he had met had flashed irresistibly in to fill the void.

Elective affinity, sexual affinity, or whatsoever the intangible essence known as love is, had never been manifest.