are useless. How am I to make him see that it is I who respect the state of marriage by refusing; not he by perpetually soliciting. Once married, married for ever. Widow is but a term. When women hold their own against him, as I have done, they will be more esteemed. I have resisted and conquered. I am sorry I do not share in the opinion of your favourite. LYRA: Mine? ASTRAEA: You spoke warmly of him. LYRA: Warmly, was it? ASTRAEA: You are not blamed, my dear: he has a winning manner. LYRA: I take him to be a manly young fellow, smart enough; handsome too. ASTRAEA: Oh, he has good looks. LYRA: And a head, by repute. ASTRAEA: For the world’s work, yes. LYRA: Not romantic. ASTRAEA: Romantic ideas are for dreamy simperers. LYRA: Amazons repudiate them. ASTRAEA: Laugh at me. Half my time I am laughing at myself. I should regain my pride if I could be resolved on a step. I am strong to resist; I have not strength to move. LYRA: I see the sphinx of Egypt! ASTRAEA: And all the while I am a manufactory of gunpowder in this quiet old-world Sabbath circle of dear good souls, with their stereotyped interjections, and orchestra of enthusiasms; their tapering delicacies: the rejoicing they have in their common agreement on all created things. To them it is restful. It spurs me to fly from rooms and chairs and beds and houses. I sleep hardly a couple of hours. Then into the early morning air, out with the birds; I know no other pleasure. LYRA: Hospital work for a variation: civil or military. The former involves the house-surgeon: the latter the grateful lieutenant. ASTRAEA: Not if a woman can resist... I go to it proof-armoured. LYRA: What does the Dame say? ASTRAEA: Sighs over me! Just a little maddening to hear. LYRA: When we feel we have the strength of giants, and are bidden to sit and smile! You should rap out some of our old sweet-innocent garden oaths with her--‘Carnation! Dame!’ That used to make her dance on her seat.--‘But, dearest Dame, it is as natural an impulse for women to have that relief as for men; and natural will out, begonia! it will!’ We ran through the book of Botany for devilish objurgations. I do believe our misconduct caused us to be handed to the good man at the altar as the right corrective. And you were the worst offender. ASTRAEA: Was I? I could be now, though I am so changed a creature. LYRA: You enjoy the studies with your Spiral, come! ASTRAEA: Professor Spiral is the one honest gentleman here. He does homage to my principles. I have never been troubled by him: no silly hints or side-looks--you know, the dog at the forbidden bone. LYRA: A grand orator. ASTRAEA: He is. You fix on the smallest of his gifts. He is intellectually and morally superior. LYRA: Praise of that kind makes me rather incline to prefer his inferiors. He fed gobble-gobble on your puffs of incense. I coughed and scraped the gravel; quite in vain; he tapped for more and more.