‘Both sexes are specialised for love and reproduction,’ said Karenin.

‘But the women carry the heavier burden.’

‘Not in their imaginations,’ said Edwards.

‘And surely,’ said Kahn, ’when you speak of love as a phase—­isn’t it a necessary phase?  Quite apart from reproduction the love of the sexes is necessary.  Isn’t it love, sexual love, which has released the imagination?  Without that stir, without that impulse to go out from ourselves, to be reckless of ourselves and wonderful, would our lives be anything more than the contentment of the stalled ox?’

‘The key that opens the door,’ said Karenin, ’is not the goal of the journey.’

‘But women!’ cried Rachel.  ’Here we are!  What is our future—­as women?  Is it only that we have unlocked the doors of the imagination for you men?  Let us speak of this question now.  It is a thing constantly in my thoughts, Karenin.  What do you think of us?  You who must have thought so much of these perplexities.’

Karenin seemed to weigh his words.  He spoke very deliberately.  ’I do not care a rap about your future—­as women.  I do not care a rap about the future of men—­as males.  I want to destroy these peculiar futures.  I care for your future as intelligences, as parts of and contribution to the universal mind of the race.  Humanity is not only naturally over-specialised in these matters, but all its institutions, its customs, everything, exaggerate, intensify this difference.  I want to unspecialise women.  No new idea.  Plato wanted exactly that.  I do not want to go on as we go now, emphasising this natural difference; I do not deny it, but I want to reduce it and overcome it.’

‘And—­we remain women,’ said Rachel Borken.  ’Need you remain thinking of yourselves as women?’

‘It is forced upon us,’ said Edith Haydon.

’I do not think a woman becomes less of a woman because she dresses and works like a man,’ said Edwards.  ’You women here, I mean you scientific women, wear white clothing like the men, twist up your hair in the simplest fashion, go about your work as though there was only one sex in the world.  You are just as much women, even if you are not so feminine, as the fine ladies down below there in the plains who dress for excitement and display, whose only thoughts are of lovers, who exaggerate every difference....  Indeed we love you more.’

‘But we go about our work,’ said Edith Haydon.

‘So does it matter?’ asked Rachel.

’If you go about your work and if the men go about their work then for Heaven’s sake be as much woman as you wish,’ said Karenin.  ’When I ask you to unspecialise, I am thinking not of the abolition of sex, but the abolition of the irksome, restricting, obstructive obsession with sex.  It may be true that sex made society, that the first society was the sex-cemented family, the first state a confederacy of blood relations, the first laws sexual