r force had gone from herself into the plump infant,
whose "_cris dechirants_" were all that now remained to the world of his
mother's once magnificent voice. _Helas!_ how many brilliant careers had
he not seen ruined by this fatal instinct! Jouffroy's passion for his
art had overcome the usual sentiment of the Frenchman, and even the
strain of Jewish blood. He did not think a woman of genius well lost for
a child. He grudged her to the fetish _la famille_. He went so far as to
say that, even without the claims of genius, a woman ought to be
permitted to please herself in the matter. When he heard that Madame had
two children, and yet had not abandoned her ambition, he nodded gravely
and significantly.

"But Madame has courage," he commented. "She must have braved much
censure."

It was the first case of the kind that had come under his notice. He
hoped much from it. His opinion of the sex would depend on Hadria's
power of persistence. In consequence of numberless pupils who had shewn
great promise, and then had satisfied themselves with "a stupid
maternity," Jouffroy was inclined to regard women with contempt, not as
regards their talent, which he declared was often astonishing, but as
regards their persistency of character and purpose.

One could not rely on them. They had enthusiasm--Oh, but enthusiasm _a
faire peur_, but presently "_un monsieur avec des moustaches
seduisantes_" approaches, and then "_Phui, c'est tout fini!_" There was
something of fatality in the affair. The instinct was terrible; a
demoniacal possession. It was for women a veritable curse, a disease. M.
Jouffroy had pronounced views on the subject. He regarded the maternal
instinct as the scourge of genius. It was, for women, the devil's
truncheon, his rod of empire. This "reproductive rage" held them--in
spite of all their fine intuitions and astonishing ability--after all on
the animal plane; cut them off from the little band of those who could
break up new ground in human knowledge, and explore new heights of Art
and Nature.

"I speak to you thus, Madame, not because I think little of your sex,
but because I grudge them to the monster who will not spare us even
one!"

Hadria worked with sufficient energy to please even Jouffroy. Her heart
was in it, and her progress rapid. Everything was organized, in her
life, for the one object. At the School of Music, she was in an
atmosphere of work, everyone being bent on the same goal, each detail
a