umes he had accumulated in his four college
years. As Peter, his head aching, looked at these, he realized how
immeasurably removed he was from the cool abstraction of the study.

The brown man sat down in an ancient rocking-chair by the window, leaned
back, and closed his eyes. His blood still whispered in his ears from
his fight. Notwithstanding his justification, he gradually became filled
with self-loathing. To fight--to hammer and kick in Niggertown's dust--
over a girl! It was an indignity.

Peter shifted his position in his chair, and his thoughts took another
trail. Tump's attack had been sudden and silent, much like a bulldog's.
The possibility of a simple friendship between a woman and a man never
entered Tump's head; it never entered any Niggertown head. Here all
attraction was reduced to the simplest terms of sex. Niggertown held no
delicate intimacies or reserves. Two youths could not go with the same
girl. Black women had no very great powers of choice over their suitors.
The strength of a man's arm isolated his sweetheart. That did not seem
right, resting the power of successful mating entirely upon brawn.

As Peter sat thinking it over, it came to him that the progress of any
race depended, finally, upon the woman having complete power of choosing
her mate. It is woman alone who consistently places the love accent upon
other matters than mere flesh and muscle. Only woman has much sex
selectiveness, or is inclined to select individuals with qualities of
mind and spirit.

For millions of years these instinctive spiritualizers of human breeding
stock have been hampered in their choice of mates by the unrestrained
right of the fighting male. Indeed, the great constructive work of
chivalry in the middle ages was to lay, unconsciously, the corner-stone
of modern civilization by resigning to the woman the power of choosing
from a group of males.

Siner stirred in his chair, surprised at whither his reverie had lead
him. He wondered how he had stumbled upon these thoughts. Had he read
them in a book? In point of fact, a beating administered by Tump Pack
had brought the brown man the first original idea he had entertained in
his life.

By this time, Peter's jaw had reached its maximum swelling and was eased
somewhat. He looked out of his little window, wondering whether Cissie
Dildine would choose him--or Tump Pack.

Peter was surprised to find blue dusk peering through his panes. All the
scare-heads on