They knew his worth, but they wouldn't have had him inside their own doors.

Well, the worse for their wives and daughters, say I.They did without him; they can do without me.

The man that will only have me on condition his trade is not mine can do without me too, and if it's the same in a new country, then the new country be damned!" The hot-headed speaker, striding about the room, stopped with the word that ended this tirade, and gave it out roundly.
"The thing is," said Robert, "can you do without _them_--all these men and women who won't have you on your own terms?
They constitute all the men and women in the world for you and me, for we don't care for the other sort.

Can you do without them?
I couldn't." He said the "I couldn't" first as if looking back to the time when he had broken loose from the family tradition; he repeated it more steadfastly, and it seemed to press pathetically into present and future--"I couldn't." The book that he had been idly swinging above his pillow was an old missal, and he lowered it now to shield his face somewhat from his brother's downward gaze.
"No, you couldn't," repeated Alec soberly.

He stood with his hands in his pockets, looking down half pityingly, perhaps with a touch of superiority.