"The house looks so pretty," said Madeleine, as she and Jane went through to the kitchen. "How do you ever manage it,--with just the same things, too?" Jane glanced about. "Why, there's a right place for everything, and if you just stand back a bit and let the things have time to think, they'll tell you where to put them. There was an old blue vase in the dining-room that was pretty weak-minded, but I was patient and carried it all over the place till finally it was suited on top of the what-not in the corner of the hall. The trouble with most things is that we hurry them too much at first, and then we don't help them out of their false position later." "Oh, Jane, you are so delightfully quaint. You must tell Mr. Rath that. It's the kind of speech that will just charm the soul right out of an artist." Jane was deep in the flour-bin. "But I don't want to charm his soul. I'll leave that to you." "To me! Why, he doesn't care a rap about me." "Well, then, to Emily Mead." "Emily Mead! Oh, my dear, you have put a lot of new ideas into her head! She says that you told her that any one could get anything that he or she wanted." "And so they can." "Suppose she wants Mr. Rath?" "If she wants him in the right way, she'll have him." "I don't like that way of speaking of men," said Madeleine, dipping her white fingers into the flour and beginning to chip the butter through it. "Don't you think it's horrid how girls speak of men nowadays? I do." "Of course I do," said Jane. "But one drops into the habit just because everybody does it. I'll never be married myself, and it's partly because I think it's all being so dragged down. Instead of two people's knowing one another and liking one another better till finally a big, beautiful, holy secret sort of dawns on them and makes the world all over new, girls just go on and act as if men were wild animals to be hunted and caught and talked about, or married and made fun of. I don't think all these new ideas and new ways for women have made women a bit more womanly. When I had to earn my living, I picked out work that a man couldn't do, and that I wouldn't be hurting any man by doing. I'm sorry for men nowadays. And I think women lose a lot the way some of them go on." "After all, there can't be anything nicer than to be a woman, can there?" said Madeleine, stirring as the other poured in ingredients. "I've always been glad that I was a woman. I think that a woman's life is so sweet, and it's beautiful to be protected and cared for." The pink flew over her cheeks at the words. Jane's lashes swept downward for a minute, then rose resolutely. "Or to protect and care for others. It always seems to me as if a woman was the sort of blessed way through which a man's love and strength and care go to his children. Men are so helpless with children, but they do such a lot for wives, and then the mothers pass it on to the little ones."