It was, perhaps, this one thing that would always prevent humanity from being, in fact, a clever and successful race, would always keep them down somewhere near the level of the other animals. Faces passed before Kitty's wakeful eyes; the fatuous, contented faces of mothers bending over the rewards of love clinging to their breasts; slow, placid, married faces everywhere.... This thing was irresistible, and certainly inevitable; if it ceased, humanity itself would cease, since it is the one motive which impels the continued population of the already over-populated earth. There it was; one had to accept it; there was, perhaps, no one who grew to years of maturity who escaped it, no one whose life would not, at some period, be in some degree disorganised by this strange force. It was blind instinct; its indulgence did not, in the end, even make for good, so far as good meant adventure, romance, and the gay chances of life, the freedom of the cities of the world--anything beyond mere domesticity. For what, after all, was marriage? A tying down, a shutting of gates, the end of youth, the curbing of the spirit of adventure which seeks to claim all the four corners of the world for its heritage. It meant a circumscribed and sober life, in one place, in one house, with, perhaps, children to support and to mind; it meant becoming respectable, insured, mature, settled members of society, with a stake in the country. No longer may life be greeted with a jest and death with a grin; both these (of course important but not necessarily solemn) things have come to matter too much to be played with. To this sedate end do the world's gay and careless free-lances come; they shut the door upon the challenging spirit of life, and Settle Down. It is to this end that instinct, not to be denied, summons men and women, as the bit of cheese summons the mouse into the trap. Musing thus, Kitty turned her pillow over and over, seeking a softer side. How she detested stupidity! How, even more, Nicholas Chester loathed stupidity! To him it was anathema, the root of all evil, the Goliath he was out to destroy, the blind beast squatting on men's bones, the idiot drivelling on the village green. And here he was, caught in the beast's destroying grip, just because he had, as they call it, fallen in love.... What a work is man!... And here was Kitty herself, all her gay love of living in danger, tottering unsteadily on its foundations, undermined by this secret gnawing thing.