"What do you mean?" she asked. "This attitude of women." "Is it more odious than the attitude of men?" "After all," he said, "man is born with the biceps. He was made to do the fighting." "Not all of the intellectual fighting." "No, of course not. But--you don't want him to rock the cradle, do you?" "Cradles are no longer rocked, Captain Jones. I don't think _you_ would be qualified to pass this examination with which you menace us." He began to be interested. She turned from the window, saw he was interested, hesitated, then: "I wish I could talk to you--to such a man as you seem to be--sensibly, without rancour, without personal enmity or prejudice----" "Can't you?" "Why, yes. _I_ can. But--I am not sure what _your_ attitude----" "It is friendly," he said, looking at her. "I am perfectly hap--I mean willing to listen to you. Only, sooner or later, you must return to me those papers." "Why?" "The Governor entrusted them to me officially----" She said smiling: "But you--your Governor I mean--can frame another similar bill." "I'm a soldier in uniform," he said dramatically. "My duty is to guard those papers with my life!" "I am a soldier, too," she said proudly, "in the Army of Human Progress." "Very well," he said, "if you regard it that way." "I do. Only brute violence can deprive me of these papers." "That," he said, "is out of the question." "It is no more shameful than the mental violence to which you have subjected us through centuries. Anyway, you're not strong enough to get them from me." "Do you expect me to seize you and twist your arm until you drop those papers?" "You can never have them otherwise. Try it!" He sat silent for a while, alternately twisting his moustache and the cat's tail. Presently he flung the latter away, rose, inspected the stars on the wall, and then began to pace to and fro, his gloved hands behind his back, spurs and sword clanking. "It's getting late," he said as he passed her. Continuing his promenade he added as he passed her again. "I've had no luncheon. Have you?" He poked around the room, examining the fantastic furnishings in all their magnificence of cotton velvet and red cheesecloth. "If this is Dill's room it's a horrible place," he thought to himself, sitting down by a table and shuffling a pack of cards. "Shall I cast your horoscope?" he asked amiably. "Here's a chart." "No, thank you." Presently he said: "It's getting beastly cold in this room." "Really!" she murmured. He came back and sat down in the gilded chair. It was now so dusky in the room that he couldn't see her very plainly. So he folded his arms and abandoned himself to gloomy patience until the room became very dark. Then he got up, struck a match, and lighted the gas. "By Jupiter!" he muttered, "I'm hungry."