"I asked him what his second book was to be about," Reifferscheid went on. "'Women,' said he. 'How novel!' said I. He grinned genially. 'Reifferscheid,' he declared, in his snappy way, 'women are interesting. They're doing the thinking nowadays. They're getting there. One of these mornings, man will wake up to the fact that he's got to be born again to get in a class with his wife. Man is mixed up with altogether too much of this down-town madness. Women don't want votes, public office, or first-hand dollars. _They want men!_' ... I always remembered that little bit of stuff from Charter. He says the time will come when classy girls will get their heads together and evolve this ultimatum, which will be handed intact to adorers: 'No, boys, we can't marry you. We haven't any illusions about celibacy. It isn't nice nor attractive, but it's better than being yoked with hucksters and peddlers who come up-town at night--mental cripples in empty wagons. Go away and learn what life means, what it means to be men--_what it means to us for you to be men_! Learn how to live--and oh, boys, hurry back!'" "Splendid!" Paula exclaimed. "Oh, yes, Charter is a full deck and a joker. He's lived. He makes you feel him. His years are veritable campaigns. He has dangled in the vortices of human action and human passion--and seemed to come out whole!..." Reifferscheid chuckled at a memory. "'Women are interesting,' Charter finished in his dry fashion. 'I just got to them lately. I wish I could know them all.'" "I love the book already," Paula said. Reifferscheid laughed inwardly at the feminine way she held the volume in both hands, pressing it close. "It's the only book on my table this morning that I'd like to read," he added. "Therefore I give it to you. There's no fun in giving something you don't want.... Are you going to hear Bellingham to-night?" She was conscious of an unaccountable dislike at the name, a sense of inward chill. It was almost as reckonable as the pleasure she felt in the work and personality of Quentin Charter. "Who's Bellingham?" Paula swallowed dryly after the first utterance of the name. "Mental magician. I only mentioned him, because you so seldom miss the unusual, and are so quick to hail a new cult or odd mental specimen." "Magician--surely?" she asked. "He comes rather stoutly recommended as such," Reifferscheid replied, "though personally mine is more than a healthy skepticism. There's a notice this morning of his lectures. He recently hypnotized a man to whom the medical profession was afraid to administer an anaesthetic--held him painless during a long and serious operation. Then Bellingham is the last word in alchemy, feminine emotions, causes of hysteria, longevity, the proportions of male and female in each person; also he renews the vital principle, advises unions, makes you beautiful, and has esoteric women's classes. A Godey's Ladies' man. Some provincial husband will shoot him presently."