By the time the concert was over, Janet was sorry for the way she had pitched into her guest. Would he forgive her for letting the heat of argument carry her away? Not that she retracted a word she had said. Far from it. It was impossible to say too much on that score. Had he noticed the wide publicity which the Paris newspapers had given to an assertion appearing in one of Arnold Bennett’s recent books? It was the assertion that women are inferior to men in intellectual power and that "no amount of education or liberty of action will sensibly alter this fact." This gesture of finality with which men, even men of genius like Bennett, invariably polished off the future of women and consigned them to an eternity of subordination! When would this superficial generalization ever stop, if avowed feminists like Robert fell to using the language of their opponents even while avoiding their errors? "I’m only taking the words out of your mouth, Robert," she concluded, in her softest pacifying tones. "I’m only repeating what you’ve told me a hundred times over in the past." He smiled at this sop to his vanity, which none the less helped to restore good feeling. *VI* Janet had taken him towards the river. They walked arm in arm along the Quai Voltaire and the Quai d’Orsay, the tranquil Seine and the starry skies almost their sole companions. The dispute of the evening still fresh in his mind, Robert alluded to Janet’s former ambition to create a new profession for women of the middle class. A branch of law, wasn’t it? Authorship law, so to speak. Had she given it any thought of late? What a nuisance it was that money should have to be the root of all experiment as well as the root of all evil. In the absence of enough capital, it was probably just as well that she deferred another attempt to realize her dream. Still, it was a pity. She had made such a good beginning with the firm of Barr & Lloyd, humble though the scale of its operations had been. "Well, Robert, are you ready to renew the partnership?" she challenged him. "Is this a strictly business proposal?" he replied, in a hesitating manner. She was chilled by his clumsiness. "Barr & Lloyd was always a ’strictly business’ affair, wasn’t it?" she said, in a cool, quiet voice. He wanted to burst out with: "No, I never believed it was wholly that. If you’d had my sort of partnership in mind, I’d give a very swift and a very different answer." But the words stuck in his throat. For two reasons. Her sudden return to the almost hostile manner that had baffled him earlier, was one. His knowledge that the limited and precarious means he disposed of would make an offer of marriage from him seem ridiculous, if not insane, was the second.