"No doubt it would," I replied, feeling myself driven to a close scrutiny of the Woman Question, as we call it, for the first time in my life. For I saw that my friend was deeply interested and wanted to get at the literal truth. "But the women of my country," I went on, "the self-supporting ones, do not have control of money. They have a horror of speculation, and shrink from taking risks and making ventures, the failure of which would mean loss or ruin to others. A woman's right to make her living is restricted to the powers within herself, powers of brain and hand. She is a beginner, you know. She has not yet learned to make money by the labor of others; she does not know how to manipulate those who are less intelligent and less capable than herself, and to turn their ignorance and helplessness to her own account. Perhaps I had better add that she is more religious than man, and is sustained in this seeming injustice by something she calls conscience." Severnius was silent for a moment; he had a habit of setting his reason to work and searching out explanations in his own mind, of things not easily understood. As a rule, the Marsians have not only very highly developed physical faculties, such as sight and hearing, but remarkably acute intellects. They let no statement pass without examination, and they scrutinize facts closely and seek for causes. "If so many women," said he, "are obliged to support themselves and others beside, as you say, by their work simply, they must receive princely wages,--and of course they have no responsibilities, which is a great saving of energy." I remembered having heard it stated that in New York City, the United States Bureau gives the average of women's wages--leaving out domestic service and unskilled labor--as five dollars and eighty-five cents per week. I mentioned the fact, and Severnius looked aghast. "What, a mere pittance!" said he. "Only about a third as much as I give my stableman. But then the conditions are different, no doubt. Here in Thursia that would no more than fight off the wolf, as we say,--the hunger and cold. It would afford no taste of the better things, freedom, leisure, recreation, but would reduce life to its lowest terms,--mere existence." "I fear the conditions are much the same with us," I replied. "And do your women submit to such conditions,--do they not try to alter them, throw them off?"