“There can be no two opinions about Miss Quincey.”

“I don’t know.  Miss Quincey,” said Rhoda thoughtfully to her pencil, “is a large subject.”

“Yes, if you mean that Miss Quincey is a terrible legacy from the past.  The question for me is—­how long am I to let her hamper our future?”

“The future?  It strikes me that we’re not within shouting distance of the future.  We talk as if we could see the end, and we’re nowhere near it, we’re in all the muddle of the middle—­that’s why we’re hampered with Miss Quincey and other interesting relics of the past.”

“We are slowly getting rid of them.”

At that Rhoda blazed up.  She was young, and she was reckless, and she had too many careers open to her to care much about consequences.  Miss Cursiter had asked for her opinion and she should have it with a vengeance.

“It’s not enough to get rid of them.  We ought to provide for them.  Who or what do we provide for, if it comes to that?  We’re always talking about specialisation, and the fact is we haven’t specialised enough.  Don’t we give the same test papers to everybody?”

“I shall be happy to set separate papers for each girl if you’ll undertake to correct them.”

The more Rhoda fired the more Miss Cursiter remained cold.

“That’s just it—­we couldn’t if we tried.  We know nothing about each girl.  That’s where we shall have to specialise in the future if we’re to do any good.  We’ve specialised enough with our teachers and our subjects; chipped and chopped till we can’t divide them any more; and we’ve taken our girls in the lump.  We know less about them than they do themselves.  As for the teachers—­”

“Which by the way brings us back to Miss Quincey.”

“Everything brings us back to Miss Quincey.  Miss Quincey will be always with us.”

“We must put younger women in her place.”

Rhoda winced as though Miss Cursiter had struck her.

“They will soon grow old.  Our profession is a cruel one.  It uses up the finest and most perishable parts of a woman’s nature.  It takes the best years of her life—­and throws the rest away.”

“Yet thousands of women are willing to take it up, and leave comfortable homes to do it too.”

“Yes,” sighed Rhoda, “it’s the rush for the open door.”

“My dear Rhoda, the women’s labour market is the same as every other.  The best policy is the policy of the open door.  Don’t you see that the remedy is to open it wider—­wider!”

“And when we’ve opened all the doors as wide as ever they’ll go, what then?  Where are we going to?”

“I can’t tell you.”  Miss Cursiter looked keenly at her.  “Do you mean that you’ll go no further unless you know?”

Rhoda was silent.

“There are faults in the system.  I can see that as well as you, perhaps better.  I am growing old too, Rhoda.  But you are youth itself.  It is women like you we want—­to save us.  Are you going to turn your back on us?”