," admitted she. "I suppose they aren't to
blame for using their sex. I ought to be ashamed of myself, to sneer at
them."

"As a matter of fact, their sex does few of them any good. The reverse.
You see, an attractive woman--one who's attractive _as_ a woman--can
skirmish round and find some one to support her. But most of the working
women--those who keep on at it--don't find the man. They're not
attractive, not even at the start. After they've been at it a few years
and lose the little bloom they ever had--why, they've got to take their
chances at the game, precisely like a man. Only, they're handicapped by
always hoping that they'll be able to quit and become married women. I'd
like to see how men would behave if they could find or could imagine any
alternative to 'root hog or die.'"

"What's the matter with you this evening, Fred? I never saw you in such
a bitter mood."

"We never happened to get on this subject before."

"Oh, yes, we have. And you always have scoffed at the men who fail."

"And I still scoff at them--most of them. A lot of lazy cowards. Or
else, so bent on self-indulgence--petty self-indulgence--that they
refuse to make the small sacrifice to-day for the sake of the large
advantage day after to-morrow. Or else so stuffed with vanity that they
never see their own mistakes. However, why blame them? They were born
that way, and can't change. A man who has the equipment of success and
succeeds has no more right to sneer at one less lucky than you would
have to laugh at a poor girl because she wasn't dressed as well as you."

"What a mood! _Something_ must have happened."

"Perhaps," said he reflectively. "Possibly that girl set me off."

"What girl?"

"The one I told you about. The unfortunate little creature who was
typewriting for me this afternoon. Not so very little, either. A curious
figure she had. She was tall yet she wasn't. She seemed thin, and when
you looked again, you saw that she was really only slender, and
beautifully shaped throughout."

Miss Burroughs laughed. "She must have been attractive."

"Not in the least. Absolutely without charm--and so homely--no, not
homely--commonplace. No, that's not right, either. She had a startling
way of fading and blazing out. One moment she seemed a blank--pale,
lifeless, colorless, a nobody. The next minute she became--amazingly
different. Not the same thing every time, but different things."

Frederick Norman was too experienced a deal