He appeared to swallow a little air and to find some difficulty in doing so. “I know,” he said, “you do talk a lot more intellectually than the rest of us dubs around here. It’s because you’ve got a more intellectual nature, and everything like that; and that’s one of the reasons I look up to you the way I do. I always used to think that a girl that usually had an intellectual nature had to wear horn spectacles and have her dress higher on one side than it was on the other, and wear these sensible-looking shoes, and everything like that. But you’ve showed me I was mistaken, Muriel. You made me see that a girl could have an intellectual nature and be prettier and dress niftilier than all the brainless ones put together. But what worries _me_ is——” He paused uncomfortably, and repeated, “What worries _me_ is——” then paused again, and, with his head on one side, moved his forefinger to and fro between his collar and his neck as if he felt a serious tightness there. “Well?” Muriel said, after waiting for some time. “Do you wish me to understand it’s your neckwear that worries you, Renfrew?” “No,” he said absently, and frowning in his pained earnestness, again repeated: “What worries _me_ is——” Once more he stopped. “Well, well!” “It’s simply this,” he said. “What worries me is simply this. It’s like this. For instance, do you think it’s absolutely necessary for them _both_ to have an intellectual nature?” “‘Both?’” she inquired. “What do you mean—‘both?’” “I mean the man and the woman,” he said. “Do you think they _both_ have to have——” “_What_ man and woman?” “I mean,” said Renfrew, “I mean the husband and the wife.” “Why, what in the world——” “Would they _both_ have to have one?” he asked hopefully. “They wouldn’t _both_ have to have an intellectual nature, would they?” “I haven’t the slightest idea what you’re talking about,” she said with emphasis, though a delicate colour had risen in her cheeks, and people seldom blush on account of being puzzled. “I don’t believe you know what you mean, yourself.” “Yes, I do,” he insisted, his earnestness constantly increasing. “I mean, for instance, wouldn’t it be all right for the woman to go on following her intellectual nature in her own way, if the man provided the house and the food and everything like that? Even if he didn’t have an intellectual nature himself, don’t you think they could get along together all right, especially if he respected hers and looked up to it and was glad she had one, and so—well, and so they could go on and on together—and on and on——” “Renfrew!” she cried. “How long are _you_ going ‘on and on’ about nothing?” He looked depressed. “I only meant—did you—did you really mean _everybody_, Muriel?” “When?” “When you said that about—about the savage desert that didn’t have any culture or anything.” “That wasn’t what I said, Renfrew,” she reminded him, and her expression became one of cold disapproval. “I said, ‘A cultural!——’”