her from his superior height with a tolerant amusement.

"Really! YOU think her so! And SHE thinks you so! Quite a mutual
admiration society! And both of you obsessed by the same one man! I
pity that man! The only thing for him to do is to keep out of it!
No, Manella!--think as you like, she is not beautiful. You ARE
beautiful. But SHE is clever, You are NOT clever. You may thank God
for that! SHE is outrageously, unnaturally, cursedly clever! And her
cleverness makes her see the sham of life all through; the absurdity
of birth that ends in death--the freakishness of civilisation to no
purpose--and she's out for something else. She wants some thing
newer than sex-attraction and family life. A husband would bore her
to extinction--the care of children would send her into a lunatic
asylum!"

Manella looked bewildered.

"I cannot understand!" she said--"A woman lives for husband and
children!"

"SOME women do!" he answered--"Not all! There are a good few who
don't want to stay on the animal level. Men try to keep them there--
but it's a losing game nowadays. ('Foxes have holes and birds of the
air have nests'--but we cannot fail to see that when Mother Fox has
reared her puppies she sends them off about their own business and
doesn't know them any more--likewise Mother Bird does the same.
Nature has no sentiment.) We have, because we cultivate artificial
feelings--we imagine we 'love,' when we only want something that
pleases us for the moment. To live, as you say, for husband and
children would make a woman a slave--a great many women are slaves--