go and mind their husband and children, when they
have no husband and children to mind."

"Oh," said Ransom, "that's a detail! And for myself, I confess, I have
such a boundless appreciation of your sex in private life that I am
perfectly ready to advocate a man's having a half-a-dozen wives."

"The civilisation of the Turks, then, strikes you as the highest?"

"The Turks have a second-rate religion; they are fatalists, and that
keeps them down. Besides, their women are not nearly so charming as
ours--or as ours would be if this modern pestilence were eradicated.
Think what a confession you make when you say that women are less and
less sought in marriage; what a testimony that is to the pernicious
effect on their manners, their person, their nature, of this fatuous
agitation."

"That's very complimentary to me!" Verena broke in, lightly.

But Ransom was carried over her interruption by the current of his
argument. "There are a thousand ways in which any woman, all women,
married or single, may find occupation. They may find it in making
society agreeable."

"Agreeable to men, of course."

"To whom else, pray? Dear Miss Tarrant, what is most agreeable to women
is to be agreeable to men! That is a truth as old as the human race, and
don't let Olive Chancellor persuade you that she and Mrs. Farrinder have
invented any that can take its place, or that is more profound, more
durable."

Verena waived this point of the discussion; she only said: "Well, I am
glad to hear you are prepared to see the place all choked up with old
maids!"

"I don't object to the _old_ old maids; they were delightful; they had
always plenty to do, and didn't wander about the world crying out for a
vocation. It is the new old maid that you have invented from whom I pray
to be delivered." He didn't say he meant Olive Chancellor, but Verena
looked at him as if she suspected him of doing so; and to put her off
that scent he went on, taking up what she had said a moment before: "As
for its not being complimentary to you, my remark about the effect on
the women themselves of this pernicious craze, my dear Miss Tarrant, you
may be quite at your ease. You stand apart, you are unique,
extraordinary; you constitute a category by yourself. In you the
elements have been mixed in a manner so felicitous that I regard you as
quite incorruptible. I don't know where you come from nor how you come
to be what you are, but you are outside and above all vul