i. She was awfully
keen about my gym work--you remember--at the Manor that night. She
thought every man ought to develop his body to its fullest capability.
I had Flynn out one night at Briar Hills. I didn't tell you about
that--thought you mightn't understand--and we sparred six fast rounds.
She kept the time and thought it was great. It was like going to a
vaudeville show, she said, only a thousand times more exciting. She
tried to make Lloyd do a turn, but he wouldn't, though I'd have liked
to have mussed him up a bit. Well, one thing led to another and we
had a lot of talks about education--you know, the Greek idea. It
seemed that my work with you was just in line with her whole
philosophy of life." (God bless his innocence--_her_ philosophy and
_mine_!) "The whole scheme of modern life was lopsided, she said, all
the upper classes going to brains and no body and all the lower
classes all to body and no brains. Conflict in the end was inevitable.
The unnatural way of living was weakening the fiber of the governing
powers the people of which intermarried and brought into the world
children of weak muscular tissue. She doesn't believe in marriage
unless both the man and the woman have passed rigid physical tests as
to their fitness."

"What tests?" I asked interestedly.

"Oh, I don't know. A woman who bears a child ought surely to have the
strength to do it. You and I have never talked much about these
things, Roger, and the miracle of birth, like the miracle of death,
must always be an enigma to us. But I think she's right, and I told
her that if she was ever going to have any children she ought to have
a gym built both at Briar Hills and in town for herself and begin
getting in shape for it right away."

"And what did she say to that?" I asked trying to keep countenance.

"Oh, she laughed and said that she wasn't thinking of having any
children just yet."

This, then, was the type of after-dinner conversation that took place
between them. I began more clearly to understand the fascination that
Jerry had for her--to understand, too, her growing delight in the
splendid, vital, innocent animal that she had chained to her chariot
wheel.

"Go on, Jerry," I said in a moment. "She wants you to typify the new
race--"

"Exactly. To spread the gospel of physical strength among my own
kind--to prove that mind, other things being more or less equal, is
greater than matter."

"I see," I said thoughtfully. "Then it _w