"I cannot argue with you," said the Old Maid. "I know one case.
They were both poor; it would have made no difference to her, but it
did to him. Maybe I am wrong, but it seems to me that, as you say,
our instincts are given us to guide us. I do not know. The future
is not in our hands; it does not belong to us. Perhaps it were
wiser to listen to the voices that are sent to us."

"I remember a case, also," said the Woman of the World. She had
risen to prepare the tea, and was standing with her back to us.
"Like the woman you speak of, she was poor, but one of the sweetest
creatures I have ever known. I cannot help thinking it would have
been good for the world had she been a mother."

"My dear lady," cried the Minor Poet, "you help me!"

"I always do, according to you," laughed the Woman of the World. "I
appear to resemble the bull that tossed the small boy high into the
apple-tree he had been trying all the afternoon to climb."

"It is very kind of you," answered the Minor Poet. "My argument is
that woman is justified in regarding marriage as the end of her
existence, the particular man as but a means. The woman you speak
of acted selfishly, rejecting the crown of womanhood because not
tendered to her by hands she had chosen."

"You would have us marry without love?" asked the Girton Girl.

"With love, if possible," answered the Minor Poet; "without, rather
than not at all. It is the fulfilment of the woman's law."