“No, it's no use, professor,” she said. “A man has got to go his way and a woman hers. If their ways lie together, so much the better--they can help each other; if they lie apart, so much the worse. Besides, I cannot conceive anything more irritating to a man than to be followed all about by his wife--like a dog. No wonder some men beat their wives.” Treherne had caught the speech. He turned to Clytie. “Do you believe that?” “Of course. Mrs. Farquharson and I are sworn sisters. We hold advanced views concerning ourselves. I hope you don't think we have a mission! Have you ever thought how distressing it is to try to live up to a false ideal, and somebody else's into the bargain?” “We all have to live up to an ideal. This one may be false; I don't know. At any rate it is a high one, and worth aiming at.” “That is Jesuitical. What is to become of a woman's self-respect when she knows all the time she is a humbug, although a sublime one?” “By seeking to inspire others with faith in her she will at length acquire faith in herself.” “Don't you think that's rather vicious?” “I don't know. The same principle obtains in my own calling. Many a man enters the Church who is not really fit for it. But the professional effort he has to make to raise others in most cases raises himself.” “That may be quite true,” said Clytie, “but it does not prove the principle to be right. Besides, the cases are different. You undertake, when you enter the Church, to do certain things. Now when a woman enters the world she does not undertake to do anything, any more than a man does. They both clamour to assert themselves as human beings. They may go about it in different ways,--it is merely the difference of sex,--but their ultimate end is the same.” “And what is this?” “To get as much out of life as possible.” “That's scarcely orthodox.” The accompanying smile was a touch of the curb on Clytie. She paused. There was an interval of dining. Then she turned to reply to a remark of the professor. Mrs. Farquharson, who hitherto had steered skilfully through the shoals of antiquity, was run aground by Colonel Chowder. Clytie was astonished to hear her friend talking learnedly of coins and Latin inscriptions. She ran discursively over the points of George's collection, toning her speech with a light counterpoint of mockery, so that its echo should reach Clytie's ears. Mrs. Chowder bubbled domesticity over the Egyptologist; spoke of her sons, the difficulty of army examinations. She was bent upon their getting into the service, also upon their marrying young. The reconciliation of these incongruities was the problem offered for Mr. Vansittart's solution. Clytie again turned to Mr. Treherne. “Do you often come here? I am almost of the house and I have never met you.” “Once before, on a similar occasion--almost the same circle. A common hobby brings the most divergent people together.”