‘Ten years?’

’When I first knew him he was paying obvious attentions to a rather plain cousin down at Twybridge.  Why, I don’t know, for he certainly was devoted to a girl here in London.  All he has confessed to me is that he had given up hopes of her, but that a letter of some sort or other revived them, and he hastened back to town.  He might as well have stayed away; the girl very soon married another man.  Less than a year later she had bitterly repented this, and in some way or other she allowed Moxey to know it.  Since then they have been Platonic lovers—­nothing more, I am convinced.  They see each other about once in six months, and presumably live on a hope that the obnoxious husband may decease.  I only know the woman as “Constance”; never saw her.’

‘So that’s Moxey?  I begin to understand better.’

’Admirable fellow, but deplorably weak.  I have an affection for him, and have had from our first meeting.’

‘Women!’ mused Earwaker, and shook his head.

‘You despise them?’

‘On the whole, I’m afraid so.’

‘Yes, but what women?’ cried the other with impatience.  ’It would be just as reasonable to say that you despise men.  Can’t you see that?’

‘I doubt it.’

’Now look here; the stock objections to women are traditional.  They take no account of the vast change that is coming about.  Because women were once empty-headed, it is assumed they are all still so en masse.  The defect of the female mind?  It is my belief that this is nothing more nor less than the defect of the uneducated human mind.  I believe most men among the brutally ignorant exhibit the very faults which are cried out upon as exclusively feminine.  A woman has hitherto been an ignorant human being; that explains everything.’

’Not everything; something, perhaps.  Remember your evolutionism.  The preservation of the race demands in women many kinds of irrationality, of obstinate instinct, which enrage a reasoning man.  Don’t suppose I speak theoretically.  Four or five years ago I had really made up my mind to marry; I wasted much valuable time among women and girls, of anything but low social standing.  But my passions were choked by my logical faculty.  I foresaw a terrible possibility—­that I might beat my wife.  One thing I learned with certainty was that the woman, qua woman, hates abstract thought—­ hates it.  Moreover (and of consequence) she despises every ambition that has not a material end.’

He enlarged upon the subject, followed it into all its ramifications, elaborated the inconsistencies with which it is rife.  Peak’s reply was deliberate.

’Admitting that some of these faults are rooted in sex, I should only find them intolerable when their expression took a vulgar form.  Between irrationality and coarseness of mind there is an enormous distinction.’

‘With coarse minds I have nothing to do.’