“I always do, according to you,” laughed the Woman of the World.  “I appear to resemble the bull that tossed the small boy high into the apple-tree he had been trying all the afternoon to climb.”

“It is very kind of you,” answered the Minor Poet.  “My argument is that woman is justified in regarding marriage as the end of her existence, the particular man as but a means.  The woman you speak of acted selfishly, rejecting the crown of womanhood because not tendered to her by hands she had chosen.”

“You would have us marry without love?” asked the Girton Girl.

“With love, if possible,” answered the Minor Poet; “without, rather than not at all.  It is the fulfilment of the woman’s law.”

“You would make of us goods and chattels,” cried the Girton Girl.

“I would make of you what you are,” returned the Minor Poet, “the priestesses of Nature’s temple, leading man to the worship of her mysteries.  An American humorist has described marriage as the craving of some young man to pay for some young woman’s board and lodging.  There is no escaping from this definition; let us accept it.  It is beautiful—­so far as the young man is concerned.  He sacrifices himself, deprives himself, that he may give.  That is love.  But from the woman’s point of view?  If she accept thinking only of herself, then it is a sordid bargain on her part.  To understand her, to be just to her, we must look deeper.  Not sexual, but maternal love is her kingdom.  She gives herself not to her lover, but through her lover to the great Goddess of the Myriad Breasts that shadows ever with her guardian wings Life from the outstretched hand of Death.”

“She may be a nice enough girl from Nature’s point of view,” said the Old Maid; “personally, I shall never like her.”

CHAPTER IV

“What is the time?” asked the Girton Girl.

I looked at my watch.  “Twenty past four,” I answered.

“Exactly?” demanded the Girton Girl.

“Precisely,” I replied.

“Strange,” murmured the Girton Girl.  “There is no accounting for it, yet it always is so.”

“What is there no accounting for?” I inquired.  “What is strange?”

“It is a German superstition,” explained the Girton Girl, “I learnt it at school.  Whenever complete silence falls upon any company, it is always twenty minutes past the hour.”

“Why do we talk so much?” demanded the Minor Poet.

“As a matter of fact,” observed the Woman of the World, “I don’t think we do—­not we, personally, not much.  Most of our time we appear to be listening to you.”

“Then why do I talk so much, if you prefer to put it that way?” continued the Minor Poet.  “If I talked less, one of you others would have to talk more.”

“There would be that advantage about it,” agreed the Philosopher.

“In all probability, you,” returned to him the Minor Poet.  “Whether as a happy party we should gain or lose by the exchange, it is not for me to say, though I have my own opinion.  The essential remains--that the stream of chatter must be kept perpetually flowing.  Why?”