Business-like, he reverted to pounds, shillings, and pence. It was a settled thing that he should read classics and mathematics with Miss Bartrand on three mornings of the week, at the sum (happily the darkness veiled the blushes on Marjorie’s face) of six francs an hour. ‘Classics and mathematics!’ cried old Andros, assenting to the money part of the transaction with suave courtesy. ‘What will the little witch do with classics and mathematics when she has got them?’ ‘Enter Newnham or Girton with them, in the first place,’ answered Marjorie unhesitatingly. ‘Newnham or Girton!’ The unfavourable summing-up of all arguments that have been put forth on the subject of woman’s higher education was in Andros Bartrand’s enunciation of the words. ‘Newnham and Girton send forth good men,’ remarked Geoffrey Arbuthnot. ‘In the future, sir, when the girls shall “make Greek Iambics, and the boys black-currant jams,” we look forward confidently to seeing Girton head of the river.’ ‘At my age I am unmoved by new theories,’ said old Andros. ‘New facts I am not likely to confront. There has never yet been a great woman poet.’ ‘Mrs. Browning, grandpapa.’ ‘Nor a great woman painter.’ ‘Rosa Bonheur.’ ‘Nor a discoverer in science.’ ‘Mrs. Somerville.’ ‘Nor a solitary musical composer.’ The girl was silent. ‘Yet all these fields have been as open to them as to men, have they not, witch?’ Marjorie Bartrand had passed into the garden. She stood impatiently tapping a slender foot on the turf and looking up, her arms folded, an expression on her face curiously like that of old Andros, at a strip of crescent moon that showed between the cedar branches. ‘A new moon. I curtsey to her, twice, thrice, and I wish a wish!’ ‘Did you hear my question, witch? In poetry, art, music, have women not had just as ample chances as men?’ ‘Spanish women have had no chances at all,’ cried Marjorie, raising her tone, as she adroitly shifted her ground, after the manner of her sex. ‘For their sake I mean to work--yes, to get to the level of a B.A., grandpapa, in spite of your most withering contempt.’ ‘For the sake of Spain, benighted Spain!’ remarked the Seigneur genially. ‘My granddaughter’s blood is half Spanish, Mr. Arbuthnot. I had a son once--an only son----’ Could it really be that Andros Bartrand’s firm voice for a second faltered? ‘When he was no longer a young man he went to Cadiz, for health’s sake, and married, poor fellow, a Spanish girl who died at the end of the year. Marjorie has stayed a few times among her mother’s family, and has gone Spain-crazed, as you will soon find out for yourself.’ ‘Crazed!’ rang Marjorie’s tuneful voice through the night. ‘I want to hold my hands out to my own people, yes, to teach, if I ever know anything myself, among the girls of our poor benighted Spain. And I am proud of my craziness. I thank you for the word, grandpapa. It is the prettiest compliment.’