even than losing other people's money,
the money of the men who trusted him. It means that he must be false
to his commercial honour. You see that, don't you, Gorman? And there
doesn't seem any way out of the dilemma. He has got to go back on his
patriotism or on his honour. There is no other course."

I looked at Mrs. Ascher for approval. I had stated her husband's dilemma
clearly, I believed fairly. Gorman could hardly fail to understand. I
thought Mrs. Ascher would have been pleased with me. To my amazement she
acknowledged my efforts with a burst of indignation.

"Oh," she cried, "you do not understand, either of you. You do not even
begin to understand. I suppose you cannot, because you are men and not
women. You men! All of you, my husband, too, though he is far above the
rest of you--but even he! You concern yourselves about things which
are nothing. You argue about phantoms and discuss them as if they
were realities. And all the time you miss the things which are. You
think"--she spoke directly to Gorman and her voice expressed the utmost
scorn--"you think about reputation, the way men babble about each other
and will babble about us. Why should we care? Even if we were afraid of
what men say there are places in the world to which the voices of Europe
cannot reach. There are islands in the sea where the sun shines and palm
trees grow, to which the talk of men who dwell in cities never comes."

I recollected the desire which Mrs. Ascher had once expressed to me of
getting "far, far away from everywhere." She evidently hoped to be able
to try that experiment.

She turned from Gorman and faced me.

"You talk," she said, "about honour and patriotism. What are they?
Words, just words. It is only you men, slaves of your own conventions,
who take them for realities. We women know better. You go about life
imagining that your limbs are bound with fetters. They are bound with
delusions. We women know. Love and beauty are real. Nothing else is. All
your fine words are like the flags under which your dupes go out to die;
fluttering rags to us whose eyes are open. You talk--oh, so finely you
talk--about the shadows your own imaginings cast, and you end in being
afraid of them. You talk--you dare to talk to me of money----"

This was a totally unjust accusation. I had not talked about money. I
had more sense than to mention money to a woman in Mrs. Ascher's frame
of mind.

"I have money enough of my own," she said. "