who entertain you. In time I'll forget that
I was born, as most women are, with a fine perception of life's
subtleties, and settle down to living year in and year out with no
change except that each season you're less attractive and more petty.
After a while I shall even get to like the calm level of being an
Englishman's wife, and if I see any girl thinking as I do now, I'll
know what a little fool she is. That's what happens to us--we get used
to things. Those of us who don't, either get a divorce, or go to the
devil, or just live out our little farce. It is a real tragedy of
English life that women are losing through disuse the qualities that
were given them. That is why an American like you comes here and says
we do not edit ourselves cleverly.'

The rapid succession of sentences came to an end, and the colour which
had mounted to her cheeks slowly subsided.

VI.

'I feel,' he said, 'that I can only vaguely understand what you mean.
But is it not possible that you are looking at it too much from the
standpoint of an individualist?'

'Women are all individualists,' she broke in; 'or they are until
society breaks their spirit. This lumping of people into generations
and tuning your son's brain to the same pitch as his medieval
ancestors' doesn't interest women--that's man's performance. The great
thing about a woman is her own life, isn't it? And the great event in
a woman's life is when she has a child--because it's _hers_. This
class and family stuff comes from men, because their names are
perpetuated, not ours. There is no snobbery equal to men's; it is more
noticeable with women, because it isn't instinctive with them, and they
have to talk to show it.'

'Then,' said Selwyn, 'in addition to an Irish Rebellion, we may look
for one from English women?'

'Yes. I don't know when, but it will come.'

He produced a cigarette-case. 'Would you care for a cigarette now?' he
asked.

'No, thanks. But you smoke.'

'Poor England!' he said in pretended seriousness, tapping the table
with the end of the cigarette, 'with two revolutions on her hands, and
neither party knowing what it wants.'

'We may not know what we want,' she said, 'but, as an Irishman said the
other day, "we won't be satisfied till we get it." If the rebellion of
our women doesn't come, I prophesy that in a couple of thousand years,
when the supermen inhabit the earth, they will find a sort of land
mermaid with an expressionless f