sweet and good of Marjorie; but do you know, Harold, I like
Susie's idea better.'

'Which idea was that, Stephen?'

'Why, didn't you notice what she said: "I'd like to be God and be able to
do things"?'

'Yes,' he said after a moment's reflection. 'That's a fine idea in the
abstract; but I doubt of its happiness in the long-run.'

'Doubt of its happiness? Come now? what could there be better, after
all? Isn't it good enough to be God? What more do you want?'

The girl's tone was quizzical, but her great black eyes blazed with some
thought of sincerity which lay behind the fun. The young man shook his
head with a smile of kindly tolerance as he answered:

'It isn't that--surely you must know it. I'm ambitious enough, goodness
knows; but there are bounds to satisfy even me. But I'm not sure that
the good little thing isn't right. She seemed, somehow, to hit a bigger
truth than she knew: "fancy having to be just."'

'I don't see much difficulty in that. Anyone can be just!'

'Pardon me,' he answered, 'there is perhaps nothing so difficult in the
whole range of a man's work.' There was distinct defiance in the girl's
eyes as she asked:

'A man's work! Why a man's work? Isn't it a woman's work also?'

'Well, I suppose it ought to be, theoretically; practically it isn't.'

'And why not, pray?' The mere suggestion of any disability of woman as
such aroused immediate antagonism. Her companion suppressed a smile as
he answered deliberately:

'Because, my dear Stephen, the Almighty has ordained that justice is not
a virtue women can practise. Mind, I do not say women are unjust. Far
from it, where there are no interests of those dear to them they can be
of a sincerity of justice that can make a man's blood run cold. But
justice in the abstract is not an ordinary virtue: it has to be
considerate as well as stern, and above all interest of all kinds and of
every one--' The girl interrupted hotly:

'I don't agree with you at all. You can't give an instance where women
are unjust. I don't mean of course individual instances, but classes of
cases where injustice is habitual.' The suppressed smile cropped out now
unconsciously round the man's lips in a way which was intensely
aggravating to the girl.

'I'll give you a few,' he said. 'Did you ever know a mother just to a
boy who beat her own boy at school?' The girl replied quietly:

'Ill-treatment and bullying are subjects for punishment, not jus