Dyce sat with his head bent forward, his hands grasping his knees.  After what seemed to be profound reflection, he said gravely: 

“This is how you think to-day.  I won’t be so unjust to you as to take it for your final reply.”

“Yet that’s what it is,” answered Constance.

“You think so.  The sudden possession of wealth has disturbed your mind.  If I took you at your word,” he spoke with measured accent, “I should be guilty of behaviour much more dishonourable than that of which you accuse me.  I can wait.”  He smiled with a certain severity.  “It is my duty to wait until you have recovered your natural way of thinking.”

Constance was looking at him, her eyes full of wonder and amusement.

“Thank you,” she said.  “You are very kind, very considerate.  But suppose you reflect for a moment on your theory of the equality of man and woman.  Doesn’t it suggest an explanation of what you call my disordered state of mind?—­Let us use plain words.  You want money for your career, and, as the need is pressing, you are willing to take the encumbrance of a wife.  I am to feel myself honoured by your acceptance of me, to subject myself entirely to your purposes, to think it a glorious reward if I can aid your ambition.  Is there much equality in this arrangement?”

“You put things in the meanest light,” protested Lashmar.  “What I offer you is a share in all my thoughts, a companionship in whatever I do or become.  I have no exaggerated sense of my own powers, but this I know, that, with fair opportunity, I can attain distinction.  If I thought of you as in any sense an encumbrance, I shouldn’t dream of asking you to marry me; it would defeat the object of my life.  I have always seen in you just the kind of woman who would understand me and help me.”

“My vanity will grant you that,” replied Constance.  “But for the moment I want you to inquire whether you are the kind of man who would understand and help me.—­You are surprised.  That’s quite a new way of putting the matter, isn’t it?  You never saw that as a result of your theory?”

“Stay!” Dyce raised his hand.  “I know perfectly well that you are ambitious.  If you were not, we should never have become friends.  But you must remember that, from my point of view, I am offering you such a chance of gratifying your ambition as you will hardly find again.”

“That is to say, the reflection of your glory.  As a woman, what more can I ask?  You can’t think how this amuses me, now that I have come to my senses.  Putting aside the question of whether you are likely to win glory at all, have you no suspicion of your delightful arrogance?  I should like to know how far your contempt of women really goes.  It went far enough, at all events, to make you think that I believed your talk about equality of the sexes.  But really, I am not quite such a simpleton.  I always knew that you despised women, that you looked upon them as creatures to be made use of.  If you ask:  why, then, did I endure you for a moment? the answer must be, that I am a woman.  You see, Mr. Lashmar, we females of the human species are complex.  Some of us think and act very foolishly, and all the time, somewhere in our curious minds, are dolefully aware of our foolishness.  You knew that of men; let me assure you that women share the unhappy privilege.”