Lyra:  Mine?

Astraea:  You spoke warmly of him.

Lyra:  Warmly, was it?

Astraea:  You are not blamed, my dear:  he has a winning manner.

Lyra:  I take him to be a manly young fellow, smart enough; handsome too.

Astraea:  Oh, he has good looks.

Lyra:  And a head, by repute.

Astraea:  For the world’s work, yes.

Lyra:  Not romantic.

Astraea:  Romantic ideas are for dreamy simperers.

Lyra:  Amazons repudiate them.

Astraea:  Laugh at me.  Half my time I am laughing at myself.  I should regain my pride if I could be resolved on a step.  I am strong to resist; I have not strength to move.

Lyra:  I see the sphinx of Egypt!

Astraea:  And all the while I am a manufactory of gunpowder in this quiet old-world Sabbath circle of dear good souls, with their stereotyped interjections, and orchestra of enthusiasms; their tapering delicacies:  the rejoicing they have in their common agreement on all created things.  To them it is restful.  It spurs me to fly from rooms and chairs and beds and houses.  I sleep hardly a couple of hours.  Then into the early morning air, out with the birds; I know no other pleasure.

Lyra:  Hospital work for a variation:  civil or military.  The former involves the house-surgeon:  the latter the grateful lieutenant.

Astraea:  Not if a woman can resist . . .  I go to it proof-armoured.

Lyra:  What does the Dame say?

Astraea:  Sighs over me!  Just a little maddening to hear.

Lyra:  When we feel we have the strength of giants, and are bidden to sit and smile!  You should rap out some of our old sweet-innocent garden oaths with her—­’Carnation!  Dame!’ That used to make her dance on her seat.—­’But, dearest Dame, it is as natural an impulse for women to have that relief as for men; and natural will out, begonia! it will!’ We ran through the book of Botany for devilish objurgations.  I do believe our misconduct caused us to be handed to the good man at the altar as the right corrective.  And you were the worst offender.

Astraea:  Was I?  I could be now, though I am so changed a creature.

Lyra:  You enjoy the studies with your Spiral, come!

Astraea:  Professor Spiral is the one honest gentleman here.  He does homage to my principles.  I have never been troubled by him:  no silly hints or side-looks—­you know, the dog at the forbidden bone.

Lyra:  A grand orator.

Astraea:  He is.  You fix on the smallest of his gifts.  He is intellectually and morally superior.

Lyra:  Praise of that kind makes me rather incline to prefer his inferiors.  He fed gobble-gobble on your puffs of incense.  I coughed and scraped the gravel; quite in vain; he tapped for more and more.