"I will help you," he said. "Here's my hand on it. And it strikes me that this is about the most poignant appeal that a woman can make to a man. To his chivalry, if you like!" And then I said the rest: "And you must see--I'm not a mother-woman. I should love children--to have them, to give them every free chance to grow. But it would be the same with them: their sewing, their mending, a good deal of the care of them--I don't know about it, and I shouldn't like it. I shouldn't be wise about their feeding, or the care of them if they were sick. And as for saying that the knowledge comes with the physical birth of the child, that's sheer nonsense." "Oh, utter nonsense," he agreed. "Yes, I know you're not a 'mother-woman,' in the sense that means a nurse. Many women are not who are afraid to acknowledge it. But you'd give strength and health to your children--you're fitted to bring them into the world--you'd love them, and all children." And this was thrillingly true for me. "What I really want to do," I said, "is to help make the world a home for all children--to make life--and their birth--normal and healthful and right, my own children included." "You're the new factor that we've got to deal with, Cosma," he said, "the mother-to-the-race woman. A woman whose passion for the children of the race isn't necessarily to be confused with a passion for keeping their ears clean. It's something that we've all got to work out together...." He broke off, and cried out to me, "Cosma! Are you willing that we shall let this beat us?" I looked up at him. "It's something that has to be worked out," he repeated. "All that you've been saying--it's got to be worked out for all women. Well, it's not going to be done by every woman funking it, and staying unmarried." He put his hands on my shoulders and looked into my eyes. "Are you sure," he said, "that I understand? That from the bottom of my heart I know and feel what you've been saying? And that I'll do the best I can to help you work it out?" "Yes," I said, "I'm sure of that." I was intensely sure of him--sure that we looked at life with the same love for the same kind of living. "Will you come?" he cried. "Will you come and face it with me? And do your best, somehow, to work it out with me?" [Illustration: "Will you come and face it with me?"] His arms drew me, and in them was home. And for my life I could not have told whether I went to meet his challenge, or whether I went because we were each other's in the ancient way.