“With the exception of the Histriones, where for the purposes of art we encourage a certain emotional latitude to produce that contact with suffering which the artist we know must experience; the cases you refer to, are rare. The remedy is of course, simple. All emotions have a physical or glandular origin so that a short period of treatment in the hospital corrects the malady.” It was on the tip of my tongue to recommend to her an immediate treatment, but I conquered my sense of humor. Our relations had now reached so critical a point that I realized they would bear no further provocation. So I said smiling: “But if the woman doesn’t want to be cured?” “You forget,” said Acquilla, with a gesture to the assembly, “that men such as you see there, can have only a physical appeal. In the rare case where an accidental intelligence may complicate the emotional problem, and this has only happened to the Histriones, there is a choice. We cannot, in the name of morality, permit the continuance of a relationship which has degenerated into a disorganization of the senses, but we do permit the unfortunate couple the right to be translated together through the Frigidrome into another existence.” “Wait.” I stopped and took her hand genuinely moved. “Do I understand, my dear Acquilla, that you are prepared to take this voyage into time with me?” “If there is no other way out--yes,” she said tremulously. “But if I could show you another way?” I said, pressing her arm in my eagerness. In that heroic moment, I was ready to sacrifice Dianne for Acquilla. “What way, dear?” she asked startled. “Help me to restore men to their former dignity and rights. Make them your mates and not simply breeders.” “Never!” she cried, drawing her hand instantly away from me. “Betray my beliefs--never! I shall sacrifice myself but never my civilization! Understand that once and for all, Bogardus!” “Incorruptible one!” I murmured in involuntary admiration. “Incorruptible as Robespierre,” I added to myself, “and just as implacable.” “You will find as a matter of fact,” Acquilla added after a moment’s reflection, “that we are always guided by the strictest sense of justice. Our acquired scientific wisdom has laid down certain inviolable rules of conduct. If an individual refuses to conform we don’t avenge ourselves by any cruel or unusual method of punishment, we simply remove him to another civilization.” “Nothing could be more just, oh, Solomon,” I admitted enthusiastically, “and you put to shame our archaic penal system where a man was not even permitted the right to take his own life.” “Bear always in mind, dear,” said Acquilla with an approving nod, “that man’s logic always reasoned from traditions, whereas we women reason from the immediate necessity. Your brain was a deductive one, ours is always inductive. It is that power of divination, of sensing first what ought to be, that has produced the great feminine discoveries in science.”