“You think I am so slight and weak a thing!” I exclaimed.  “You, who profess to understand the secrets of electricity—­you have no better instinctive knowledge of me than that!  Do you deem women all alike—­ all on one common level, fit for nothing but to be the toys or drudges of men?  Can you not realize that there are some among them who despise the inanities of everyday life—­who care nothing for the routine of society, and whose hearts are filled with cravings that no mere human love or life can satisfy?  Yes—­even weak women are capable of greatness; and if we do sometimes dream of what we cannot accomplish through lack of the physical force necessary for large achievements, that is not our fault but our misfortune.  We did not create ourselves.  We did not ask to be born with the over-sensitiveness, the fatal delicacy, the highly-strung nervousness of the feminine nature.  Monsieur Heliobas, you are a learned and far-seeing man, I have no doubt; but you do not read me aright if you judge me as a mere woman who is perfectly contented with the petty commonplaces of ordinary living.  And as for my creed, what is it to you whether I kneel in the silence of my own room or in the glory of a lighted cathedral to pour out my very soul to one whom I know exists, and whom I am satisfied to believe in, as you say, without proofs, save such proofs as I obtain from my own inner consciousness?  I tell you, though, in your opinion it is evident my sex is against me, I would rather die than sink into the miserable nonentity of such lives as are lived by the majority of women.”

I paused, overcome by my own feelings.  Heliobas smiled.

“So!  You are stung!” he said quietly; “stung into action.  That is as it should be.  Resume your seat, mademoiselle, and do not be angry with me.  I am studying you for your own good.  In the meantime permit me to analyze your words a little.  You are young and inexperienced.  You speak of the ’over-sensitiveness, the fatal delicacy, the highly-strung nervousness of the feminine nature.’  My dear lady, if you had lived as long as I have, you would know that these are mere stock phrases—­for the most part meaningless.  As a rule, women are less sensitive than men.  There are many of your sex who are nothing but lumps of lymph and fatty matter—­women with less instinct than the dumb beasts, and with more brutality.  There are others who,—­ adding the low cunning of the monkey to the vanity of the peacock,—­ seek no other object but the furtherance of their own designs, which are always petty even when not absolutely mean.  There are obese women whose existence is a doze between dinner and tea.  There are women with thin lips and pointed noses, who only live to squabble over domestic grievances and interfere in their neighbours’ business.  There are your murderous women with large almond eyes, fair white hands, and voluptuous red lips, who, deprived of the dagger or the poison-bowl, will slay a reputation in