'There's the task,' said he. 'It's to separate them as little as possible. All the--passez-moi le mot--devilry between the sexes begins at their separation. They 're foreigners when they meet; and their alliances are not always binding. The chief object in life, if happiness be the aim, and the growing better than we are, is to teach men and women how to be one; for, if they 're not, then each is a morsel for the other to prey on. Lady Charlotte Eglett's view is, that the greater number of them on both sides hate one another.' 'Hate!' exclaimed Selina; and Aminta said: 'Is Lady Charlotte Eglett an authority?' 'She has observed, and she thinks. She has in the abstract the justest of minds: and that is the curious point about her. But one may say they are trained at present to be hostile. Some of them fall in love and strike a truce, and still they are foreigners. They have not the same standard of honour. They might have it from an education in common.' 'But there must be also a lady to govern the girls?' Selina interposed. 'Ah, yes; she is not yet found!' 'Would it increase their mutual respect?--or show of respect, if you like?' said Aminta, with his last remark at work as the shattering bell of a city's insurrection in her breast. 'In time, under management; catching and grouping them young. A boy who sees a girl do what he can't, and would like to do, won't take refuge in his muscular superiority--which, by the way, would be lessened.' 'You suppose their capacities are equal?' 'Things are not equal. I suppose their excellencies to make a pretty nearly equal sum in the end. But we 're not weighing them each. The question concerns the advantage of both.' 'That seems just!' Aminta threw no voice into the word 'just.' It was the word of the heavens assuaging earth's thirst, and she was earth to him. Her soul yearned to the man whose mind conceived it. She said to Selina: 'We must plan an expedition next year or the year after, and see how the school progresses.' All three smiled; and Selina touched and held Aminta's hand shyly. Visions of the unseen Switzerland awed her. Weyburn named the Spring holiday time, the season of the flowering Alpine robes. He promised welcome, pressed for a promise of the visit. Warmly it was given. 'We will; we will indeed!' 'I shall look forward,' he said.