But Janet laughed.  “What’s the difference?  Some of us aren’t any better than monkeys, anyway.”

“That’s so,” said the man approvingly.  “That’s so.”  He wanted to continue the conversation, but they left him rather ruthlessly.  And when, from the entrance to the performance tent, they glanced back over their shoulders, he was still gazing at his cousins behind the bars, seemingly deriving an acute pleasure from his consciousness of the connection....

CHAPTER VI

Modern business, by reason of the mingling of the sexes it involves, for the playwright and the novelist and the sociologist is full of interesting and dramatic situations, and in it may be studied, undoubtedly, one phase of the evolution tending to transform if not disintegrate certain institutions hitherto the corner-stones of society.  Our stage is set.  A young woman, conscious of ability, owes her promotion primarily to certain dynamic feminine qualities with which she is endowed.  And though she may make an elaborate pretense of ignoring the fact, in her heart she knows and resents it, while at the same time, paradoxically, she gets a thrill from it,—­a sustaining and inspiring thrill of power!  On its face it is a business arrangement; secretly,—­attempt to repudiate this as one may,—­it is tinged with the colours of high adventure.  When Janet entered into the intimate relationship with Mr. Claude Ditmar necessitated by her new duties as his private stenographer her attitude, slightly defiant, was the irreproachable one of a strict attention to duty.  All unconsciously she was a true daughter of the twentieth century, and probably a feminist at heart, which is to say that her conduct was determined by no preconceived or handed-down notions of what was proper and lady-like.  For feminism, in a sense, is a return to atavism, and sex antagonism and sex attraction are functions of the same thing.  There were moments when she believed herself to hate Mr. Ditmar, when she treated him with an aloofness, an impersonality unsurpassed; moments when he paused in his dictation to stare at her in astonishment.  He, who flattered himself that he understood women!

She would show him!—­such was her dominating determination.  Her promotion assumed the guise of a challenge, of a gauntlet flung down at the feet of her sex.  In a certain way, an insult, though incredibly stimulating.  If he flattered himself that he had done her a favour, if he entertained the notion that he could presently take advantage of the contact with her now achieved to make unbusinesslike advances—­well, he would find out.  He had proclaimed his desire for an able assistant in Miss Ottway’s place—­he would get one, and nothing more.  She watched narrowly, a l’affut, as the French say, for any signs of sentiment, and indeed this awareness of her being on guard may have had some influence on Mr. Ditmar’s own attitude, likewise irreproachable....  A rather anaemic young woman, a Miss Annie James, was hired for Janet’s old place.