ng, let's call it--the hardening process."

"You!" she exclaimed.

"Everyone who succeeds--in active life. You don't understand the system,
dear. It's a cutthroat game. It isn't at all what the successful
hypocrites describe in their talks to young men!" He laughed. "If I had
followed the 'guides to success,' I'd not be here. Oh, yes, I've made
terrible sacrifices, but--" his look at her made her thrill with
exaltation--"it was worth doing. . . . I understand and sympathize with
those who scorn to succeed. But I'm glad I happened not to be born with
their temperament, at least not with enough of it to keep me down."

"You're too hard on yourself, too generous to the failures."

"Oh, I don't mean the men who were too lazy to do the work or too
cowardly to dare the--the unpleasant things. And I'm not hard with
myself--only frank. But we were talking of the women. Poor things, what
chance have they got? You scorn them for using their sex. Wait till
you're drowning, dear, before you criticise another for what he does to
save himself when he's sinking for the last time. I used everything I
had in making my fight. If I could have got on better or quicker by the
aid of my sex, I'd have used that."

"Don't say those things, Fred," cried Josephine, smiling but half in
earnest.

"Why not? Aren't you glad I'm here?"

She gave him a long look of passionate love and lowered her eyes.

"At whatever cost?"

"Yes," she said in a low voice. "But I'm _sure_ you exaggerate."

"I've done nothing _you_ wouldn't approve of--or find excuses for. But
that's because you--I--all of us in this class--and in most other
classes--have been trained to false ideas--no, to perverted ideas--to a
system of morality that's twisted to suit the demands of practical life.
On Sundays we go to a magnificent church to hear an expensive preacher
and choir, go in expensive dress and in carriages, and we never laugh at
ourselves. Yet we are going in the name of One who was born in a stable
and who said that we must give everything to the poor, and so on."

"But I don't see what we could do about it--" she said hesitatingly.

"We couldn't do anything. Only--don't you see my point?--the difference
between theory and practice? Personally, I've no objection--no strong
objection--to the practice. All I object to is the lying and faking
about it, to make it seem to fit the theory. But we were talking of
women--women who work."

"I've no doubt you're right