“I want to give you something quite expensive, Dad,” she said. “I’ve had my eye on it for years.” “It’s you women that make war,” he continued. “Oh, I don’t mean that you do it on purpose, but it’s in your blood. It comes from the days when to live it was needful to kill. When a man who was swift and strong to kill was the only thing that could save a woman and her brood. Every other man that crept towards them through the grass was an enemy, and her only hope was that her man might kill him, while she watched and waited. And later came the tribe; and instead of the one man creeping through the grass, the everlasting warfare was against all other tribes. So you loved only the men ever ready and willing to fight, lest you and your children should be carried into slavery: then it was the only way. You brought up your boys to be fighters. You told them stories of their gallant sires. You sang to them the songs of battle: the glory of killing and of conquering. You have never unlearnt the lesson. Man has learnt comradeship—would have travelled further but for you. But woman is still primitive. She would still have her man the hater and the killer. To the woman the world has never changed.”!

“Yes,” he answered. “I have always loved you.” “Yes,” answered Madge. “It used to be a custom. Young men used to ask young women to marry them. And if they consented it was called ‘being engaged.’ Still prevails, so I am told, in certain classes.”

“I’m afraid I’m an awful nuisance to you,” he said. “I get these moods at times. You’re not angry with me?” Even the shopman wavered. Joan pressed her advantage; directed Mrs. Phillips’s attention to something a little less awful. Mrs. Phillips yielded. “Who among you is the more honoured? The miser or the giver: he who heaps up riches for himself or he who labours for others?”