ot, will come to your assistance."

From the moment Jacob Worse began to take part in the conversation, the
_attache_ felt that the reins were slipping out of his hands. Worse went
at it hammer and tongs; not that he raised his voice, or used unbecoming
expressions, but his views were so subversive and so original, that the
others were forthwith reduced to silence. At the first onset he brushed
aside all the nonsense about Norwegian women, and that sort of thing,
and went on boldly to consider the position of woman generally with
regard to man. The magistrate asked him superciliously if he meant them
to understand that he was in favour of emancipation; and when Worse
answered that he was, the magistrate asked him with a smile how he
thought he would be treated by an "emancipated wife." Worse, however,
maintained that it was not a question how a man was treated, but what
the relation really was which existed between the two. The time must be
drawing to a close when the sole consideration was, what a man found
most agreeable, and it was to be hoped that the young men of the future
would be ashamed to argue from that basis. This was plainly a hit, not
only at the magistrate, but at all married men of his generation. Aalbom
protested warmly against Worse's theory, and his wife could be heard
ejaculating in the distance. Pastor Martens now came and joined the
disputants.

Jacob Worse was becoming excited; he spoke hurriedly, and his tone
showed that he only restrained himself by an effort. On what absurd
principles, he maintained, was the education of women generally
conducted! How many thousands ended their career, worn out by the
drudgery of household duties! Their intellect was wasted, and their
strength exhausted for nothing. It was quite easy to talk so glibly of
purity in a state of society where man was to know everything and have a
right to everything, while woman was to be debarred from all
intellectual knowledge.

At the first pause in the conversation, Aalbom came to the front as
woman's champion, and the magistrate and Martens joined him. The
conversation now waxed warmer, and Delphin wandered off to Madeleine,
leaving Worse struggling alone against the arguments which both sides
brought to bear on him. The disputants became heated and excited, and
all went on talking at once, without giving time for the others to
finish their sentences.

The _attache_ stood with his hands behind his back, regarding with
app