"Wolves know no conventions," he went on with tense vehemence. "Out there in the wild soul calls to soul, body leaps to body in the fitness of true affinity. It is all Life, and therefore all Love; for Life is Love incarnated. The senile moralists of Humanity, that least fit race of all earthly animals, preach the equality of the sexes. As applied to human beings that is a lie. It is only out there among the wolves that She is the equal of He in all things, his mental, physical, psychical and sexual peer. That is why the type is kept pure and eternal. The wolf of twenty centuries hence will be fully the equal of the wolf of to-day. And why? Because of the virtue of perfect natural selection--the fittest to the fittest, without the let and hindrance of sickly sentimentality, the unnatural joining by Man-god made crimes of the unfit to the fit. Wolves breed wolves, with full powers of the highest enjoyment of Life and Love. Humanity begets weaklings, cowards, driveling idiots whose highest evolution is that shapeless thing called Hope, whose greatest virtue is submission to the anomalies of civilization. Even you, who could be the peer of any wolf that ever ran untrammeled--" He stopped abruptly, ashamed of his vehemence, and somewhat abashed by the indulgent if slightly satirical smile of his amused listener. "Even if I could run, and howl, and go hungry; every man's hand, and what is infinitely worse, every woman's tongue against me! And what could the Wolf give me in exchange for this?" waving her hand around the room comprehensively and incidentally fondling her jewels. "He could give you something in exchange for _that_," he said, with a sinister glance towards the fireplace and again she dropped her eyes. He drew the chess board towards him and began mechanically arranging the pieces. Then he swept them impatiently into a heap and made as if to arise. She leaned forward suddenly and again laid her hand on his arm. "The wolf subject is an interesting one to me. It is really a pity that I will not be accorded an opportunity of studying them in their native haunts. If it were not for your, to us, unfortunate obligations elsewhere, I should devote quite a portion of my time to the pursuit of more definite information about them." His hot hand almost burned hers. "Why shouldn't you investigate the matter if you want to? Your husband is going to buy the VN ranch!" In silence more eloquent than words she gave him her hand.