’Nothing of the kind!  It is the spirit of justified reason.  You may say that those people were honestly mistaken;—­such honesty is the brand of a brainless obstructive. They would have persecuted, but too gladly!  There were, and are, men who would have committed Darwin to penal servitude, if they had had the power.  Men like Lyell, who were able to develop a new convolution in their brains, I respect heartily.  I only speak of the squalling mass, the obscene herd of idiot mockers.’

‘Who assuredly,’ remarked Earwaker, ’feel no shame whatever in the retrospect of their idiocy.  To convert a mind is a subject for high rejoicing; to confute a temper isn’t worth the doing.’

‘That is philosophy,’ said Marcella, ’but I suspect you of often feeling as Mr. Peak does.  I am sure I do.’

Peak, meeting an amused glance from the journalist, left his seat and took up a volume that lay on one of the tables.  It was easy to see that his hands shook, and that there was perspiration on his forehead.  With pleasant tact, Moxey struck into a new subject, and for the next quarter of an hour Peak sat apart in the same attitude as before his outburst of satire and invective.  Then he advanced to Miss Moxey again, for the purpose of taking leave.  This was the signal for Earwaker’s rising, and in a few minutes both men had left the house.

‘I’ll go by train with you,’ said Earwaker, as they walked away.  ‘Farringdon Street will suit me well enough.’

Peak vouchsafed no reply, but, when they had proceeded a little distance, he exclaimed harshly: 

‘I hate emancipated women!’

His companion stopped and laughed loudly.

‘Yes, I hate emancipated women,’ the other repeated, with deliberation.  ’Women ought neither to be enlightened nor dogmatic.  They ought to be sexual.’

‘That’s unusual brutality on your part.’

‘Well, you know what I mean.’

‘I know what you think you mean,’ said Earwaker.  ’But the woman who is neither enlightened nor dogmatic is only too common in society.  They are fools, and troublesome fools.’

Peak again kept silence.

‘The emancipated woman,’ pursued his friend, ’needn’t be a Miss Moxey, nor yet a Mrs. Morton.’

‘Miss Moxey is intolerable,’ said Peak.  ’I can’t quite say why I dislike her so, but she grows more antipathetic to me the better I know her.  She has not a single feminine charm—­not one.  I often feel very sorry for her, but dislike her all the same.’

‘Sorry for her,’ mused Earwaker.  ’Yes, so do I. I can’t like her either.  She is certainly an incomplete woman.  But her mind is of no low order.  I had rather talk with her than with one of the imbecile prettinesses.  I half believe you have a sneaking sympathy with the men who can’t stand education in a wife.’

‘It’s possible.  In some moods.’

’In no mood can I conceive such a prejudice.  I have no great attraction to women of any kind, but the uneducated woman I detest.’