chapter upon chapter of peevish facetiousness; the whole book written deliberately against women. Her heart beat angrily. What was Mr. Leyton doing with such a book? Where had it come from? She read swiftly, grasping the argument. The usual sort of thing; worse, because it was colloquial, rushing along in modern everyday language and in some curious way not badly written.... Because some women had corns, feminine beauty was a myth; because the world could do without Mrs. Hemans’ poetry, women should confine their attention to puddings and babies. The infernal complacent cheek of it. This was the kind of thing middle-class men read. Unable to criticise it, they thought it witty and unanswerable. That was the worst of it. Books of this sort were read without anyone there to point things out.... It ought to be illegal to publish a book by a man without first giving it to a woman to annotate. But what was the answer to men who called women inferior because they had not invented or achieved in science or art? On whose authority had men decided that science and art were greater than anything else? The world could not go on until this question had been answered. Until then, until it had been clearly explained that men were always and always partly wrong in all their ideas, life would be full of poison and secret bitterness... Men fight about their philosophies and religions, there is no certainty in them; but their contempt for women is flawless and unanimous. Even Emerson ... positive and negative, north and south, male and female .... why _negative_? Maeterlinck gets nearest in knowing that women can live, hardly at all, with men, and wait, have always been waiting, for men to come to life. How can men come to life; always fussing? How could the man who wrote this book? Even if it were publicly burned and he were made to apologise; he would still go about asquint .... lunch was going to be late, just to-day, of course.... “I _say_.” “_What_ do you say,” responded Miriam without looking up from her soup. Mr. Leyton had a topic; she could keep it going with half her attention and go restfully on, fortifying herself for the afternoon. She would attack him about the book one day next week..... “I _say_. What say you George?” “Me? All right. I say, I say, I say, anything you like m’lord.” Miriam looked up. Mr. Leyton was gazing and grinning. “What’s the matter?” she snapped. His eyes were on her toque. “_Where_ did you get that hat? Where _did_ you get that tile,” sang the cousin absently, busy with his lunch. “I made it if you _must_ know,” said Miriam. The cousin looked across; large expressionless opinionless eyes. “Going out in it?” What _was_ the matter; Mr. Leyton had never noticed anything of hers before; either it was too awful, or really rather effective and he unconsciously resented the fact of her going about in an effect. “Why not?” “Well; looks rather like a musical comedy.”