n
before that secretive nature.

"Then you have no faith in love as the best thing in the world?" he
asked.

She turned upon him her clear dreaming eyes. "I have faith enough in
love, as I have faith in death, or any other of the uncontrovertible
facts, as well as in its mission. But not as the best thing in life; not
for my sort at least. Not for even the domestic, for that matter, unless
they are utterly brainless. I believe that from the beginning of time
the misery of the world has been caused by the superstition that love
was all. It must continue to be the fate of the child-bearing woman, I
suppose--for a while at least; but others have blundered upon the fact
that it is a mere incident, and are far happier in consequence. To women
like Anabel freedom means an indulgent husband and plenty of money. To
others it means something of which the Anabels know the bare
nomenclature: an absolute freedom of the soul, of which the outer
independence is but the symbol. As I said, we only find it when we have
finished with the bogie of love. It is a modern enough discovery. Think
of the poor old maids of the generations behind us, who, failing to
marry, collapsed into insignificance instead of revelling in their
deliverance. And what humiliation to know that in your youth you are
really wooed for the sake of the race alone, no matter what the
delusions. If any one doubts it let him compare the matrimonial
opportunities of the ugly maternal girl and the ugly clever girl. When
clever women realize that they are a sex apart and wait until their
first youth at least is over before selecting a companion of the sex
that I am quite willing to concede must always interest us more than our
own, and no doubt is necessary to our completion, then will the world
have taken its first step towards real happiness."

Gwynne repressed his gorge and answered practically: "Not a bad idea if
two were really suited, for no doubt companionship is _one_ of the best
things in life, and a woman is more useful in many ways to a man than a
partner of his own sex. It is even apparent that she does equally well
in certain varieties of sport. I suppose the more experience a man has
had of life the more he hesitates to define what love really is. One has
attacks of such a severity and one recovers so completely! Doubtless
Schopenhauer was right: it is merely the furious determination of the
race to persist. Spencer tells us that it is 'absolutely antecede