-you know, they do--they say all manner of things, and that makes
unhappiness; and I do wish you were going home to-morrow, Ricky. I mean,
to your dear wife." Ripton blushed and looked away as he spoke.

The hero gave one of his scornful glances. "So you're anxious about my
reputation. I hate that way of looking on women. Because they have been
once misled--look how much weaker they are!--because the world has given
them an ill fame, you would treat them as contagious and keep away from
them for the sake of your character!

"It would be different with me," quoth Ripton.

"How?" asked the hero.

"Because I'm worse than you," was all the logical explanation Ripton was
capable of.

"I do hope you will go home soon," he added.

"Yes," said Richard, "and I, so do I hope so. But I've work to do now. I
dare not, I cannot, leave it. Lucy would be the last to ask me;--you saw
her letter yesterday. Now listen to me, Rip. I want to make you be just
to women."

Then he read Ripton a lecture on erring women, speaking of them as if he
had known them and studied them for years. Clever, beautiful, but
betrayed by love, it was the first duty of all true men to cherish and
redeem them. "We turn them into curses, Rip; these divine creatures." And
the world suffered for it. That--that was the root of all the evil in the
world!

"I don't feel anger or horror at these poor women, Rip! It's strange. I
knew what they were when we came home in the boat. But I do--it tears my
heart to see a young girl given over to an old man--a man she doesn't
love. That's shame!--Don't speak of it."

Forgetting to contest the premiss, that all betrayed women are betrayed
by love, Ripton was quite silenced. He, like most young men, had pondered
somewhat on this matter, and was inclined to be sentimental when he was
not hungry. They walked in the moonlight by the railings of the park.
Richard harangued at leisure, while Ripton's teeth chattered. Chivalry
might be dead, but still there was something to do, went the strain. The
lady of the day had not been thrown in the hero's path without an object,
he said; and he was sadly right there. He did not express the thing
clearly; nevertheless Ripton understood him to mean, he intended to
rescue that lady from further transgressions, and show a certain scorn of
the world. That lady, and then other ladies unknown, were to be rescued.
Ripton was to help. He and Ripton were to be the knights of this
enterprise.