"Now, as regards the last part of your question, my answer is a very simple one: The mission is beautiful only when wisely tendered and wisely accepted; when unwisely tendered or unwisely accepted it is likely to be, as you say, inhuman and even repulsive." "But how are you going to learn wisdom," asked I, "in a matter so difficult?" "Experience has already helped us, I think, to avoid serious mistakes except in such exceptional cases as this of Lydia. For your attention has perhaps not been called to a profound difference that exists in women little recognized in your day. This difference can, I think, best be defined as follows: some women are essentially wives, others are essentially mothers. Love is the key that opens the heart of the one, maternity the instinct that animates the other. You are a lawyer, are you not? Did you ever have any divorce cases?" "Many!" "Ransack your brain, then, and see if you do not find there evidence of what I have stated." He paused; and there came back to me an interview with a woman who complained that her husband did not wish her to have children; and as it was children she wanted--so she said--the husband was almost immaterial. There came to my mind also many women I had known for whom the husband ceased to have importance the moment a child was born. "Our art," continued he, "consists in selecting the women who combine willingness to sacrifice themselves with this maternal instinct; and not the maternal instinct alone--most women have this--but a maternal instinct that preponderates every other. We have made a double mistake in Lydia: her love for Chairo is the prepondering instinct; and though she has undoubtedly a strongly developed religion of sacrifice, she is also fond of pleasure. That pretty little tip-tilted nose of hers," he added, smiling, "should have warned us of this!" CHAPTER XVI ANNA'S SECRET