Produced by Al Haines. [Illustration: She nodded listlessly, kneeling beside his chair. (Page 135)] *The Restless Sex* *By ROBERT W. CHAMBERS* AUTHOR OF "Barbarians," "The Dark Star," "The Girl Philippa," "Who Goes There," Etc. With Frontispiece By W. D. STEVENS A. L. BURT COMPANY Publishers New York Published by arrangement with D. APPLETON & COMPANY Copyright, 1918, by ROBERT W. CHAMBERS Copyright, 1917, 1918, by The International Magazine Company Printed in the United States of America To MILDRED SISSON *THE RESTLESS SEX* *PREFACE* Created complete, equipped for sporadic multiplication and later for auto-fertilization, the restless sex, intensely bored by the process of procreation, presently invented an auxiliary and labeled him [male symbol]. A fool proceeding, for the inherited mania for invention obsessed him and he began to invent gods. The only kind of gods that his imagination could conceive were various varieties of supermen, stronger, more cruel, craftier than he. And with these he continued to derive satisfaction by scaring himself. But the restless sex remained restless; the invention of the sign of Mars ([Mars symbol]), far from bringing content, merely increased the capacity of the sex for fidgeting. And its insatiate curiosity concerning its own handiwork increased. This handiwork, however, fulfilled rather casually the purpose of its inventor, and devoted the most of its time to the invention of gods, endowing the most powerful of them with all its own cowardice, vanity, intolerance and ferocity. "He made us," they explained with a modesty attributable only to forgetfulness. "Believe in him or he’ll damn you. And if he doesn’t, we will!" they shouted to one another. And appointed representatives of various denominations to deal exclusively in damnation. Cede Deo! And so, in conformity with the edict of this man-created creator, about a decade before the Great Administration began, a little girl was born. She should not have been born, because she was not wanted, being merely the by-product of an itinerant actor—Harry Quest, juveniles—stimulated to casual procreation by idleness, whiskey, and phthisis.