order for the benefit of the young generation I am wasting my higher
capabilities, I totally disagree with you. I can conceive no more
exalted aim--to be the citizen of the Empire. Look at it in this way,
Miss Vinrace; conceive the state as a complicated machine; we citizens
are parts of that machine; some fulfil more important duties; others
(perhaps I am one of them) serve only to connect some obscure parts of
the mechanism, concealed from the public eye. Yet if the meanest screw
fails in its task, the proper working of the whole is imperilled."

It was impossible to combine the image of a lean black widow, gazing out
of her window, and longing for some one to talk to, with the image of a
vast machine, such as one sees at South Kensington, thumping, thumping,
thumping. The attempt at communication had been a failure.

"We don't seem to understand each other," she said.

"Shall I say something that will make you very angry?" he replied.

"It won't," said Rachel.

"Well, then; no woman has what I may call the political instinct. You
have very great virtues; I am the first, I hope, to admit that; but I
have never met a woman who even saw what is meant by statesmanship. I am
going to make you still more angry. I hope that I never shall meet such
a woman. Now, Miss Vinrace, are we enemies for life?"

Vanity, irritation, and a thrusting desire to be understood, urged her
to make another attempt.

"Under the streets, in the sewers, in the wires, in the telephones,