“I put it to you as a reasonable man—do you believe in that possibility?” “As a reasonable man, I do,” said he watching the pink shadows playing in her dimples. “Yes—? And how is this to come to pass?” “Ah, there you have me!” he said, “I don’t know—possibly God may, or the modern monster, Evolution.” “Through what processes, I should very much like to know?” “So should I, but I don’t, you see.” “She’d feel better if her face flushed like other women’s,” he thought; “it must be ghastly to have to consume all one’s own smoke like that.” Gwen looked out of the window, laughing softly to herself. “You look super-humanly cool,” she said, “but this minute your pride is all agog to knead and mould me into that bridal creature. It would be a triumph of Art assuredly, and to your credit. I wish you might have the kudos of it—why can’t you—why can’t I help you to, for the life of me?” There came a rush of calm restrained vehemence into her cold tones that brought them to a sort of white heat. “Why am I not mouldable—or like other women?” “My good child, you could hardly expect that from the daughter of your father and mother—you are unreasonable!” “Yes, you are right, I had forgotten them,” she said. “It is abominable we should be such puppets, not only present chances to play fast and loose with us, but to have to dance to the tune of old, ignorant, half-daft ones, that should go and rot in the grave of old failures! Why should they stay and torment us? We have enough of their kind to deal with on our own account. Have you ever read the Bible?” “Have I ever read the Bible! Do I not know every inch of Syria, and every second inch of Egypt? Yes, I have read the Book, and on its native soil.” “Perhaps that may suit it, I don’t think ours does. There was one thing, however, I read in it, that took hold of me; you may know it—‘God’s ways are past finding out,’—this seems to me to contain a whole philosophy, capable of universal application, and reaching to the present time.” “You are going too fast, my good Gwen; isn’t that rather the philosophy of ignorance? You are arguing from a point you rarely affect—from the point of view of Jewish theology with its strong, and primitive, and mystery-loving methods. God’s ways, after all, if we choose to dig into them are no denser, and are just on the same line as Nature’s. She permits no cause without an effect, or she will very well know the reason why.” “I wasn’t arguing from any point of view, Jewish or otherwise, I was just applying a theological axiom personally, thinking of parents and other chances.” “Ah, that’s an idle subject, isn’t it? By the way, you have a sneaking regard yourself for that bridal creature—you admire the woman, don’t you?” “Admire her! Yes, as a woman, of course I do. Why, she is—superb! With that mature strong tenderness in every line of her, and that divine protecting patient air of hers—that woman might be a mother of nations.”