"Oh, plenty!" Constance answered, with a dry little laugh.

"About social questions--that kind of thing?"

"Especially."

"I shouldn't be surprised if she called herself a socialist."

"That's just what she does--when she thinks it will annoy people
she dislikes."

Dyce smiled meditatively.

"I should like to know her. Yes, I should very much like to know
her. Could you manage it for me?"

Constance did not reply. She was comparing the Dyce Lashmar of
to-day with him of the past, and trying to understand the change
that had come about in his talk, his manner. It would have helped
her had she known that, in the ripe experience of his seven and
twentieth year, Dyce had arrived at certain conclusions with regard
to women, and thereupon had based a method of practical behaviour
towards them. Women, he held, had never been treated with elementary
justice. To worship them was no less unfair than to hold them in
contempt. The honest man, in our day, should regard a woman without
the least bias of sexual prejudice; should view her simply as a
fellow-being, who, according to circumstances, might or not be on
his own plane. Away with all empty show and form, those relics of
barbarism known as chivalry! He wished to discontinue even the habit