Certainly--he was not bound in any way to undertake such a business.
Blanchflower had spoken the truth when he said that he had no right to
ask it. And yet--

His mind dallied with it. Suppose he undertook it, on what lines could
he possibly run it? His feeling towards the violent phase of the
"woman's movement," the militancy which during the preceding three or
four years had produced a crop of outrages so surprising and so ugly,
was probably as strong as Blanchflower's own. He was a natural
Conservative, and a trained lawyer. Methods of violence in a civilised
and constitutional State, roused in him indignant abhorrence. He could
admit no excuse for them; at any rate no justification.

But, fundamentally? What was his real attitude towards this wide-spread
claim of women, now so general in many parts of the world admitted
indeed in some English Colonies, in an increasing number of the
American states, in some of the minor European countries--to share the
public powers and responsibilities of men? Had he ever faced the
problem, as it concerned England, with any thoroughness or candour? Yet
perhaps Englishmen--all Englishmen--had now got to face it.

Could he discover any root of sympathy in himself with what were
clearly the passionate beliefs of Delia Blanchflower, the Valkyrie of
twenty-one, as they were also the passionate beliefs of the little
Swedish lady, the blue-stocking of fifty? If so, it might be possible
to guide, even to control such a ward, for the specified three years,
at any rate, without exciting unseemly and ridiculous strife between
her and her guardian.

"I ought to be able to do it"--he thought--"without upsetting the