I'm a man.
I've a healthy man's hunger for a beautiful woman, but I've a healthy man's pride as well." He patted the smooth cheek of the only woman he had ever known as a mother, and stared at the rough rock wall oozing moisture that drip-dripped to the pool below.
"I did think I'd go away for awhile," he said after a minute spent in sober thinking.

"But I never dodged yet, and I never ran.

I'm going to stay and see the thing through, now.

I don't know--" he hesitated and then went on.

"It may not last; I may have to suffer after awhile, but standing out there, that day, listening to her carrying on, kind of--oh, I can't explain it.