"Yes, of course, I know! She does work _terribly_ hard, doesn't she?" After the slightest pause, the girl added: "It's such a pity she has to, don't you think so?" On which Donald Manford dropped cleanly from Charles's mind, and he inquired with authoritative interest, artfully concealed: "How do you mean, exactly?" "Well--I don't know--" She looked at him, laughing a little, as if not certain how far she could say what she meant; but finding his gaze so extremely encouraging, she went on seriously:-- "Don't you think when a woman gets really wrapped up in business--and all that--she's apt to miss some of the best things of life?" He might have laughed at the quaint deliciousness of that, to him, Charles Garrott. But he didn't. "That's the great question your sex is working out, isn't it?" he said, carefully. "I don't suppose work--just moderate, useful occupation--ever hurt anybody much, do you?" "Oh, no!--of course not. That's just what I believe, too. I believe everybody ought to have work to do. But--all the work isn't teaching or going to an office--or being a public speaker--do you think so?" "Oh, never. No, indeed." She hesitated and said, laughing: "I know _I_ find it work enough just keeping a house and doing the housework--and being a daughter and sister!" It was at that point that Charles's purely conventional look altered, his inmost self pricking up its ears, as it were. And a moment later the simple girl said, in the naïvest way imaginable, what seemed immediately to stick in his scientific Woman lore like a burr:-- "Of course I haven't studied and read like Cousin Mary, but truly it seems to me that--just making a home is sometimes all the business a woman could possibly attend to...." He stood looking down at her in the strangest way, engrossed with novel reflections. She would have been astonished had she guessed how her chance phrase had set this man's mind to working, behind the pleasant mask. In her innocence she clearly did not understand, even after all the speeches, how at the Redmantle Club we talked of all businesses, and everybody's business, but never the business of making a home. The reactionary talk proceeded for a space. But shortly, there were signs that the meeting was about to adjourn. And it was clear to Charles, as a true writer of a philosophical tendency, that he should be glad to be alone for a space now, and to think. He said suddenly:-- "Miss Flower, I want very much to introduce Donald Manford to you, before I go. May I do it now? Won't you promise to hold fast to this bookcase, and not budge till I come back?" The girl promised. She seemed pleased by his thought of her, but sorry over his own impending departure. "Oh, do _you_ have to go now?" she said, and her woman's eyes seemed to add quite plainly: "I'd lots rather talk to you than meet Mr. Manford." The young authority smiled at her, and disappeared into the company. Directly, he was back again, the engineer in tow.