“What’s he like in himself?” he asked her. “You’ve been seeing something of him, haven’t you?” “Did you ever see her act?” asked Joan.!

She flung back her head and the grim mouth broke into a smile. “Oh, he’s quite a nice lad,” she answered.

“Some men,” he answered. “Artists and poets. They have the woman within them. Men like myself—the mere fighter: we are incomplete in ourselves. Male and female created He them. We are lost without our mate.” The woman made no attempt to deny. Something told her that Joan had learned her secret. She glanced towards the door. Joan had closed it. “It ought to be included in every woman’s education,” Madge continued. “It is reserved for spinsters of over forty-five. Susan Fleming wrote an article upon it for the Teacher’s Friend; and spent an afternoon and evening there. A month later she married a grocer with five children. The only sound suggestion for avoiding trouble that I ever came across was in a burlesque of the Blue Bird. You remember the scene where the spirits of the children are waiting to go down to earth and be made into babies? Someone had stuck up a notice at the entrance to the gangway: ‘Don’t get born. It only means worry.’”