Superseded

a Bl

elf warm, for the breeze was brisk and cool. There was a little stir and flutter in the trees and a little stir and flutter in her heart, for she had caught sight of Dr

s he neared her and he

ighted to see you out. You really ar

ou-very well,

isode of the tea-party and begin again where they had left off? It might be so; his

of his inquiry suggesting that there was s

Only fifty-si

ss Quincey-gaining on

overdoing i

he standard of the staff. Indeed," she added, turning with a s

-holiday? It is

people-n

mistaken-were taking her i

ow, you're looking horribly tir

itted that it wo

put your cape on-th

beyed

ck enough wrap for t

t was very warm,

would like to do wit

N

ff somewhere-anywhere-for an

What would my pupils

iter

at she conceived herself to be

d Miss C

seat provided for them by the London County Council vibrated under it. He stared sulkily out over the pa

on and women's labour, the system that threw open all doors to them, and let them be squeezed and trampled down together in t

equal chances for men and women?" She was eager

re unequal. It's not the same machine. To turn a woman on to a man's work is like trying to r

the question was a large one, t

; but there are too many people looking at the o

Miss Quincey asked him if he did no

be kinder to shut

t the women's labour mar

at women's labour could be

si

something-surely yo

gro

engine when it's undergoing structural alterations-because, you know, you can't. Your precious system recognises no differences. It sets up the same absurd standard for every woman, the brilliant genius and the average imbec

er back, so to speak, to the wall, "it's all par

existence. It doesn't even mean survival of the intellectually fittest. It develops monstrosities. It defeats its own ends by brutalising the intellect itself. And the worst enemies of wom

y was quite shaken by this cataclysmal outbreak, this ov

into the

e like that. You won't get the flower of womanhood out of a forcing-house

Quincey could not think badly of a system

angry eyes as they sta

t produced them. The

he thought it was because he had such a beautiful, bumpy, intellectual forehead. And as she sat beside him and shook to that vibrating passion of his, she felt as if the blue moon had risen again and was shining through the trees of the p

play of feeling. He was angry because he wanted to come to a certain understanding with the Classical Mistress; to come to it at once; and the system kept him waiting. It was robbing him of Rhoda, and

, intelligence and beauty, of all divine and perfect possibilities. At least that was how he began. But three years' practice in London had somewhat strained the faith of the young devotee. He soon found himself in the painful position of a prie

know, I think you see deeper into the work of the Maker." And Cautley would shrug his shoulders and smile in the good man's face, and say, "The Maker! I can only tell you I'm tired of mending the work of the Maker." Yet the more he doubted the harder he worked; though his world spun round and round,

incarnate. Rhoda had appealed to him as the supreme expression of Nature's will to live. That

id, but only a harmless little withered leaf. Not a pleasant leaf, the sort that goes dancing along, all crisp and curly, in the arms of the rollicking wind; but the sort that the same wind kicks into a corner, to lie there till it rots and comes in handy as leaf mould for the forcing-house. Rhoda's friend was not like Rhoda; yet becaus

-physical thought had come to him that somehow, in the infinite entanglement of things, such women as Miss Quincey were perpetually being sacrificed to such women as Rhoda Vivian. It struck him that Nature had made up for any little extra outlay

He was not sure that her attitude to Miss Quincey was not the most beautiful thing about her. He had begun by thinking about the colour of Rhoda's eyes. He could not for the life of him remember whether they were blue or green, till something (Miss Quincey's eyes perhaps) reminded him that they were grey, pure grey, without a taint of green or a shadow of blue i

surd. Bad enough for men, but fatal for women. Any

they are?" Miss Quincey was anxious to su

at the distan

e gently, "to be women fir

f-shut eyes. She seemed at once to be protecting herself against his the

is against i

she repeat

on't you know--you are a teacher, so you ought to know-that overstrain of the higher

t no cases of the kind h

only saw the half of what we see-But you only see the process; we

ish little brain, "Ought to go-ha

be very crue

itiful. "And Nature can be very kind; kinder than we are. You are a case in point. Nature is tryin

she wanted and had never had. That was what her s

she too rose, shivering

e first to

the agitated movement of her hand as the streamers on her poo