celibate.

"Strange race," Clayton reflected idly, as Nolan's voice sang on.
"Don't know what they want, but want it like the devil. One-woman
men, too. Curious!"

It occurred to him then that his own reflection was as odd as the
fidelity of the Irish. He had been faithful to his wife. He had
never thought of being anything else.

He did not pursue that line of thought. He sat back and resumed
his nervous tapping of the cloth, not listening, hardly thinking,
but conscious of a discontent that was beyond analysis.

Clayton had been aware, since his return from the continent and
England days before, of a change in himself. He had not recognized
it until he reached home. And he was angry with himself for feeling
it. He had gone abroad for certain Italian contracts and had
obtained them. A year or two, if the war lasted so long, and he
would be on his feet at last, after years of struggle to keep his
organization together through the hard times that preceded the war.
He would be much more than on his feet. Given three more years of
war, and he would be a very rich man.

And now that the goal was within sight, he was finding that it was
not money he wanted. There were some things money could not buy.
He had always spent money. His anxieties had not influenced his
scale of living. Money, for instance, could not buy peace for the
world; or peace for a man, either. It had only one value for a man;
it gave him independence of other men, made him free.