"Nonsense, Hubbard," I interrupted. "Woman is the weaker vessel, and the more she is restricted the better for her own protection. Look at the Divorce Court! Thousands of marriages are every year dissolved. That is all owing to the greater freedom which men have conceded woman of latter years. Divorce was, comparatively speaking, an unknown quantity when men asserted the right to confine their wives in proper bounds and forced them to observe and practise the domestic virtues both for occupation and amusement. Look around you and consider what has been brought about by the unwise relaxation of the old, sound laws! A race of social moths and drones and gad-flies has been created, whose chief business in life it is to amuse themselves; whose pleasure it is to spend money often earned with difficulty by devoted fools; whose delight it is to ensnare and to deceive their former tyrants; whose estimate of motherhood is an avoidable and loathsome human incident; whose morality is a resolution to preserve their immorality from public criticism; whose faith is a shibboleth composed of superstitious formulæ, and whose religion is occasionally to attend divine service in some fashionable church arrayed in the latest thing in headgear and a chic French gown." Hubbard straightened his shoulders. His expression had grown quite superior during my tirade, and when it was over, it was plain that he looked down on me from the heights of a philosophic Aconcagua. "I would not advertise those opinions if I were you," he observed with a slight sneer. "They have a grain of truth in them, but not enough to conceal the brand of special advocate. I suppose you do not wish to be regarded as a social reformer?" "I shall be content to reform one woman--if ever I marry," I answered, with a straight face, though it was hard to keep it straight. "She has my unmeasured sympathy," said Hubbard. "Once upon a time I was a woman-hater--but in my most uncharitable moments I was never such a fool as you. You will forgive my plain speaking?" "Certainly, Hubbard, certainly. You are not responsible. It is plain to me that Lady Helen has bewitched you. One of these days you'll be lauding her as a creature of incomparable excellences--a very paragon of merit and a pattern of the virtues. I can see it coming. I am sorry, for, of course, I know what she is." Hubbard turned crimson. He snapped his teeth together and rapped out: "See here, Pinsent, we are very old friends, but I'll be damned if I allow you to disparage my wife. Is that plain?" I took out my cigarette case. "Perfectly," I murmured. He glared at me for a moment, then scowled still more blackly and growled deep in throat: "I can't think what has come over you. You haven't the least right or cause to hate her. It's positively unmanly. Especially as she thinks of you far more highly than you deserve. She feels it, too. You must have shown her how you regard her. She made me feel a brute."