“Life, in a neighbourhood like this, seems so shallow—so full of conventional fussiness. These women know nothing, and yet they must run about, like so many fashionable French clowns, doing a great deal, and nothing. I can’t get the hang of it. I suppose I am always hanging my head over something that has been born, or is growing. One gets right up against the wonder and mystery of life, the marvellous complex of growth and colour. It makes one humble, deliberate, rather like a big child. Perhaps I lose my sense of social proportion, but I can’t fit myself into these feminine back yards. And some women never forgive one for getting into the wrong back yard.” His eyes finished by smiling, half apologetically. “It seems to me that most women would rather have their men respectable hypocrites than thinkers.” She put the tray aside, and brushed some crumbs from her skirt. “The older sort of woman, perhaps.” “You mean——” “Generations of women have never had a fair chance. They had to dance to the man’s piping. And I think women are naturally conservative, sexually mistrustful of change—of new ideas.” “They carry their sex into social questions?” “Or try to crush it. There is a sort of cry for equality—for the interplay of personality with personality—without all that——” He bent forward, leaning his elbows on his knees. “Have we men been guilty of making so many of our women fussy, conventional, pitiless fools? Have you ever run up against the crass prejudice, the merciless, blind, and arrogant self-assurance of the ordinary orthodox woman?” She answered slowly, “Yes.” He seemed to wait for her. “Well?” “There is nothing to say.” “Absolute finality! Oh, I know! Everything outside the little rigid fence, ununderstandable, unmentionable! No vision, no real sympathy, no real knowledge. What can one do? I often wonder whether the child will grow up like that.” “Lynette?” He nodded. She looked at him with that peculiar brightening of the eyes and tender tremulousness of the mouth. “Oh, no! You see, she’s—she’s sensitive, and not a little woman in miniature. I mean, she won’t have the society shell hardened on her before her soul has done growing.” His face warmed and brightened. “By George, how you put things! That’s the whole truth in a nutshell. Keep growing. Keep the youngsters growing. Smash away the crust of convention!” She began to gather up her belongings, and Canterton watched her cleaning her brushes and putting them back into their case. A subtle veil of shyness had fallen upon her. She had realised suddenly that he was no longer an impersonal figure sitting there and dispassionately discussing certain superficial aspects of life, but a big man who was lonely, a man who appealed to her with peculiar emphasis, and who talked to her as to one who could understand. “I must be off home. I thought I should finish this to-day, but I will ask you not to look at it till to-morrow.” “Just as you please.”