"In the points I have named," she replied, quickly. "I am not talking of the physical, Ferdy. I know you are brave enough, dear, and can hold your own with anyone, where fighting is concerned." "I should jolly well think I could," muttered Baird, bending his arm and feeling his muscle. "I've never been licked in a fight yet." "But," went on Clarice, with emphasis, "it's your nature I talk of. You are so weak--so very, very weak." "I'm not," snapped Ferdy, flushing. "I always have my own way." "Ah, that's obstinacy, not strength. Because a person said no, you would say yes, and vice-versa. But you are the prey of your own passions, Ferdy. You deny yourself nothing." "Why should I?" "Because it is by denial--by self-denial, that we make ourselves strong, Ferdy. Why, any woman could twist you round her finger." "Any woman can twist any man, you mean. If you bring the sex question into the matter, Clarice, I admit that man is the weaker vessel. A woman can do what she likes with a man. Women rule the world, and why they should bother about this suffragette business, beats me." "All men can't be twisted by women, Ferdy. Dr. Jerce, for instance." "Pooh. He's so wrapped up in medicine and science that he hates the sex--your sex, I mean." "I don't think so," said Clarice, recalling a scene on the previous night. "Dr. Jerce is a man like other men in that way, only he is sufficiently strong to hold his own with women." "I say," cried Ferdy, restlessly, "what's all this chatter about?" "About you, if you'll only listen," said his sister, looking down at the weak frowning face. "I'm worried about you, Ferdy. When you were here with me, I could manage you, but since you came back from that trip a year ago, and went in for medicine, you have changed for the worse." "I don't see that," said Baird, sulkily. "I do. There are lines on your face, which should not be there at your age. Look at the black circles under your eyes. You're getting the look of a man who stops up night after night, and you do." "Who says that?" "Dr. Jerce says it. You don't attend to your work, he says. You are always at music-halls; you take more drink than is good for you; you gamble above what you can afford, and I dare say that you make love to all manner of women." "Oh, I say, you shouldn't say that last." "Because I'm a girl--an unmarried woman," flashed out Clarice. "What rubbish! I'll say what I think to you, who are my only brother and my twin. Do you think that I am going to see you ruin yourself with wine and women and cards, simply because there are things a girl is not supposed to know? I am twenty-three. I have had endless responsibility since Uncle Henry took ill, so I am quite able to speak out and to save you if possible." Ferdinand rose and flung his cigarette into the fire. "I won't have you talk like that to me," he declared, his voice thick with anger. "I am a man, and you are a woman." "The reverse, I think," retorted Clarice, bitterly.