"There are several reasons," he replied readily enough. "I have found that a mixed audience is not receptive; there is a self-consciousness, sometimes worse, something of a scoffing spirit, which breaks the point of my appeal. Women are aroused to interest when a man appeals directly to them. They do not like to betray a profound interest in any subject apart from the household--when their lords are present. Man instinctively combats any source which tends toward mental emancipation on the part of women. It is only a few decades ago that women were forced to abide entirely within their domestic circle. Instead of using a superior physical strength now to keep her there, man's tendency is to ridicule her outside interests. So I have found that women prefer to study alone." Bellingham answered thus circuitously, but his manner suggested that he was grateful for the inquiry, since it gave him an opportunity to express matters which had only been half-formed in his mind. Paula, whose every question had come from an inclination to confound him, began to realize that the spirit was unworthy and partook of impertinence. "I believe in automatic health," she said impatiently. "It seems to me that refinement means this: that in real fineness all such things are managed with a sort of unconscious art. For instance, I should not have health at the price of walking twice a hundred blocks in a forenoon----" "The point is eminently reasonable, Miss Linster," Bellingham remarked with a smile. "But what I find it well to do, I rarely advise for others. I am from a stock of powerful physical men. My fathers were sailors and fishermen. They gave me an organism which weakens if I neglect exercise, and I seem to require about five times as much physical activity as many men of the present generation. I have absolutely no use for this tremendous muscular strength; in fact, I should gladly be less strong if it could be accomplished without a general deterioration. The point is, that a man with three or four generations of gentle-folk behind him, can keep in a state of glowing health at the expense of about one-fifth the physical energy that I burn--who come from rough men of mighty outdoor labors." This was very reasonable, except that he seemed far removed in nature from the men of boats and beaches. She had dared to glance into his face as he spoke, and found an impression from the diamond hardness of his eyes, entirely different from that which came through listening merely. But for this glance, it never would have occurred to her, that her questions had stretched his faculties to the slightest tension. She would have arisen to go now, but he resumed: