One rainy autumn afternoon, Nick hikes up in the north Michigan woods to a cabin to meet his friend Bill. Talking and drinking, they finally discuss Nick’s breaking off his romantic relationship with Marjorie. Bill dogmatically insists that Nick did the right thing. A woman, he insists, will ruin a man; a married man is “done for.” Nick listens but realizes that he is still free to flirt with the idea of finding the right woman to marry eventually. He is far from being converted to Bill’s almost misogynistic view of women.
