For her part in the musical comedy Matilda took singing and dancing lessons, so that she was out all day and every day. She was to receive a salary twice as large as any she had yet earned, and would be financially independent even though she indulged her extravagance, than which nothing was less probable. In all the working side of her life he took a very comfortable pride. If she was not altogether his creation, at least he had helped her to shape herself, and it was a delight to see her character taking firm lines. And, as he watched her, he thought of the current sentimental prating of motherhood and its joys and its concomitant pity of men debarred from them, the absurdity of the segregation of the sexes: as if love were not in its essence creative; as if it had not begun to create before it reached consciousness; as if men could only take the love of woman, as in a pitcher, to spill it on the ground; as if love were not always beyond giving and taking, reaching out and out to create, lifting half-formed creatures into Being. . . . By the side of the other two theaters the musical comedy stage seemed almost to shine in candor, and he was glad that Matilda--the Matilda of his creation--should pass into it to charm the chuckle-heads out of their dullness. She passed into it gleefully and he was able to separate her from that other Matilda in whom there was a passion at grips with his. He was certain now that it was passion and no vagary, for, day by day, under her working efficiency, she gained in force, and warmth and stature. For five weeks Panoukian had made no appearance in Gray's Inn. Then one day he came with a fat Newfoundland puppy, a present for Matilda. She was out. Old Mole received him. "Hullo!" "How do! sir." They stood looking at each other, Old Mole holding the door back, Panoukian hesitating on the threshold with the puppy in his arms. Old Mole thought: "I will speak to him. I will tell him what I think of him. I will make him feel what he is." He said: "Come in." "Are you alone?" asked Panoukian. "Yes. Come in." They entered Old Mole's study, Panoukian first. "She said she wanted a dog, so I brought her this." Panoukian put the puppy on the floor, walked over to the cigarette box and helped himself. Old Mole opened his mouth to speak, but it was dry and he could make no sound. He ran his tongue over his lips. At last he shot out: "Panoukian!"