"There is matter for a novel or so in that." "There has been matter for hundreds." "Is the Woman's Rule a sumptuary law as well as a regimen? I mean--may she dress as she pleases?" "Not a bit of it," said my double. "Every woman who could command money used it, we found, to make underbred aggressions on other women. As men emerged to civilisation, women seemed going back to savagery--to paint and feathers. But the samurai, both men and women, and the women under the Lesser Rule also, all have a particular dress. No difference is made between women under either the Great or the Lesser Rule. You have seen the men's dress--always like this I wear. The women may wear the same, either with the hair cut short or plaited behind them, or they may have a high-waisted dress of very fine, soft woollen material, with their hair coiled up behind." "I have seen it," I said. Indeed, nearly all the women had seemed to be wearing variants of that simple formula. "It seems to me a very beautiful dress. The other--I'm not used to. But I like it on girls and slender women." I had a thought, and added, "Don't they sometimes, well--take a good deal of care, dressing their hair?" My double laughed in my eyes. "They do," he said. "And the Rule?" "The Rule is never fussy," said my double, still smiling. "We don't want women to cease to be beautiful, and consciously beautiful, if you like," he added. "The more real beauty of form and face we have, the finer our world. But costly sexualised trappings----" "I should have thought," I said, "a class of women who traded on their sex would have arisen, women, I mean, who found an interest and an advantage in emphasising their individual womanly beauty. There is no law to prevent it. Surely they would tend to counteract the severity of costume the Rule dictates." "There are such women. But for all that the Rule sets the key of everyday dress. If a woman is possessed by the passion for gorgeous raiment she usually satisfies it in her own private circle, or with rare occasional onslaughts upon the public eye. Her everyday mood and the disposition of most people is against being conspicuous abroad. And I should say there are little liberties under the Lesser Rule; a discreet use of fine needlework and embroidery, a wider choice of materials." "You have no changing fashions?" "None. For all that, are not our dresses as beautiful as yours?" "Our women's dresses are not beautiful at all," I said, forced for a time towards the mysterious philosophy of dress. "Beauty? That isn't their concern." "Then what are they after?" "My dear man! What is all my world after?" Section 6 I should come to our third talk with a great curiosity to hear of the last portion of the Rule, of the things that the samurai are obliged to do.