'I don't agree with you at all. You can't give an instance where
women are unjust. I don't mean of course individual instances, but
classes of cases where injustice is habitual.' The suppressed smile
cropped out now unconsciously round the man's lips in a way which was
intensely aggravating to the girl.

'I'll give you a few,' he said. 'Did you ever know a mother just to
a boy who beat her own boy at school?' The girl replied quietly:

'Ill-treatment and bullying are subjects for punishment, not
justice.'

'Oh, I don't mean that kind of beating. I mean getting the prizes
their own boys contended for; getting above them in class; showing
superior powers in running or cricket or swimming, or in any of the
forms of effort in which boys vie with each other.' The girl
reflected, then she spoke:

'Well, you may be right. I don't altogether admit it, but I accept
it as not on my side. But this is only one case.'

'A pretty common one. Do you think that Sheriff of Galway, who in
default of a hangman hanged his son with his own hands, would have
done so if he had been a woman?' The girl answered at once:

'Frankly, no. I don't suppose the mother was ever born who would do
such a thing. But that is not a common case, is it? Have you any
other?' The young man paused before he spoke:

'There is another, but I don't think I can go into it fairly with