"The dream of creating offspring without the concurrence of woman has always haunted the imagination of the human race. The miraculous advances which the chemical synthesis has accomplished in these latter days seem to justify the boldest hopes, but we are still far from the creation of living protoplasm. The experiences of Loeb or of Delage are undoubtedly very confounding. But in order to produce life these scientists were obliged, nevertheless, to have recourse to beings already organized. Thousands of centuries undoubtedly separate us from any possibility of realizing the most magnificent and most disconcerting dream ever engendered in the human brain. In the meantime, as the Torch of Life must be transmitted to the succeeding generations, woman will continue gloriously to fulfil her character of mother."--"Problems of the Sexes," Jean Finot; 12_s._ 6_d._ net; p. 352. Lightly worked up and chattily treated, this theme, as Katie said, drew quiet smiles of appreciation from every cultured audience which Walter addressed. O. O. "Proto ... but I thought those were a kind of oats!" said poor Dorothy, utterly bewildered. "Oats!" cried Katie in a sort of whispered shriek. "Why, it's--it's--but I don't know even how to _begin_ to explain it! Do you mean to say you haven't read about these things?" "No," murmured Dorothy, abashed. "Not Monod, nor Ellen Key, nor Sebastian Faure, nor Malom!----" "N-o." Dorothy felt horribly ashamed of herself. "But--but--those _lovely_ little boys of yours!----" She gazed wide-eyed at the disconcerted Dorothy.... * * * * * It was the humiliating truth: Dorothy had never heard of the existence of a single one of these writers and leaders of thought. She had borne Noel in black ignorance of what they had had to say about the Torch of the Race, and Jackie and the third Bit for all the world as if they had never set pen to paper. Monod had not held her hand, nor Faure been asked for his imprimatur; Key had hymned Love superfluously, and the Synthesists, equally superfluously, its supersession. For a moment she anxiously hoped that it was all right, and then, as Katie went on, the marvel of it all overwhelmed her again.