"Oh, I don't say that. I am very far from being conservative on the subject of women's work. I am inclined on the whole to think that women have souls, and, that being so, and the age of brute force being past, it is to my mind a natural corollary that they should choose their own work." "I don't see that at all, sir. I don't see that at all," said the elderly gentleman, throwing himself into a chair, and talking very warmly. "Souls! What have souls got to do with it, I should like to know? Can they do it without becoming blunted? That is the question." "I confess I think it is a strange life for a woman to choose, but I know one or two women--one certainly--who would make far better doctors than I ever shall." "Oh, they are a necessity! Mind, sir, I believe women-doctors are a necessity; so it is a mercy they want to do it; but why the devil should my niece take it up? She is not the sort of woman you mean at all. To think that a fine-looking, gentle, gifted girl, who might marry any man she liked, and move in any society she chose, should spend her days in an atmosphere of--what is the smell in this room, sir?" Dudley laughed. "Carbolic, I suppose," he said. "I use a good deal of it." "Carbolic! Well, think of a beautiful woman finding it necessary to live in an atmosphere of--_carbolic_!" Dudley laughed again, his visitor's voice was so expressive. "There are minor drawbacks, of course," he said. "But I strongly agree with you, that there is a part of our work which ought to be in the hands of women; and I, for one, will gladly hand it over to them." "I believe you! Oh, when all is said, it's grimy work, doctoring--grimy work!" "You know, of course, that I join issue with you there." "You don't find it so?" "God forbid!" "Tell me," said the stranger eagerly, running his eye from Dudley's cultured face to his long nervous hands, "you ought to know--given a woman, pure, and good, and strong, could she go through it all unharmed?" "Pure, and good, and strong," repeated Dudley reflectively. "Given a woman like that, you may safely send her through hell itself. I think the fundamental mistake of our civilisation has been educating women as if they were all run in one mould. She will get her eyes opened, of course, if she studies medicine, but some women never attain the possibilities of their nature in the shadow of convent walls. Frankly, I have no great fancy for artificially reared purity." "Artificially reared!" exclaimed the other. "My dear sir, there are a few intermediate stages between the hothouse and the dunghill! If it were only art, or literature, or politics, or even science, but anatomy--the dissecting-room!" "Well," said Dudley rather indignantly, his views developing as he spoke, "even anatomy, like most things, is as you make it. Many men take possession of a 'little city of sewers,' but I should think a pure and good woman might chance to find herself in the 'temple of the Holy Ghost.'"