"When man comes into his kingdom," Fenton broke out again, too fully
aroused to mind the banter, yet with a sort of double consciousness
enjoying the absurdity of the whole conversation, "when man comes into
his kingdom, when we get to the perfection of the race, there will be
no women. The ultimate man will be masculine--men, only men; gloriously
and eternally masculine!" "But how will the race perpetuate itself?"
asked Tom in as matter of fact a tone as he might have inquired the
time of day.

"Perpetuate itself!" blazed the other. "The race will not need to
perpetuate itself. The world will be peopled with gods! When once women
are gone the race will have become immortal!"

A shout of mingled applause and derision greeted this outburst, amid
which Fenton threw himself back in a lounging chair and lighted a fresh
cigar. He was intoxicated with himself, and few draughts are more
dangerous.

"Take to the lecture platform, Fenton," jeered Ainsworth. "You'll make
your mark in the world yet."

"I wonder you stopped at immortality," remarked Fred Rangely. "You
usually go on to dispose of the future state."

"Impossible," retorted the artist, "for you never heard me say I
believed in one."

"That's a fact," confessed the other, "but you insist so emphatically
that women have no moral sense that your philosophy certainly would