"No," Gilbert replied. "We won't ... not at this hour of the morning!" But, disregarding his decision, he went on, "My view of women is that we all make too much fuss about 'em! Either we damn them excessively or we praise them excessively. They're a cursed nuisance in literature. All the writers seem to think that man was made for woman or woman for man, and they write and write about sex and love as if there weren't other things in the world besides women!" "I'd like to know what else we were made for?" Henry said. "We were made to do our jobs," Roger answered. "I believe in what I may call the modified anchorite ... women are too emotional and get between a man and his work. Love is an excellent thing ... excellent ... but there are other things!..." "What else is there?" Henry demanded almost crossly. He felt vaguely stirred by what was being said, vaguely antagonistic to it. "Oh, lots of things," Roger answered. "Fighting for your place, moving multitudes to do your will ... oh, lots of things!" Gilbert had read some of Henry's novel, and he now began to talk about it. "You turn on the Slop-tap too often," he said. "Quinny, my son, you're a clever little chap, but you're frightfully sloppy. I've read a lot more of your novel...." "Yes?" said Henry, nervously anxious to hear his criticism. "Slop!" Gilbert continued. "Just slop, Quinny! Women aren't like lumps of dough that a baker punches into any shape he likes, and they aren't sticks of barley sugar...." "No, they aren't," Roger interrupted. "Wait till you see my cousin Rachel...." "Have you got a cousin, Roger? How damned odd!" said Gilbert. "Yes. I must bring her round here one evening. She's not a bad female ... quite intelligent for her sex. Go on!" "They're like us, Quinny!" Gilbert continued. "They're good in parts and bad in parts. That's the vital discovery of the twentieth century, and I've made it!..." Henry had been eager to hear Gilbert's criticism of his novel, but this kind of talk irritated him, though he could not understand why it irritated him, and his irritation drove him to sneers. "I suppose," he said, "you want to substitute Social Reform and Improved Toryism for Romance. Lordy God, man, do you want to put eugenics and blue-books in place of the love of woman?" "You're getting cross, Quinny!..." "No, I'm not!"