eason, either. There's a principle in it, you've got to
look back to that."

"Well?" said Marion, gleefully interrogatory, and settling herself
with an air of attention, and of demurely giving up the floor. She
was satisfied to listen, if only Frank Sunderline would talk.

"I believe I see what you meant," he said to Ray. "About the values
that things stand for. A man represents a certain amount of power in
the world."

"O, does he?" put in Marion, with an indescribable inflection. "I'm
glad to know."

"He _could_ be doing some things that a woman could not do at
all--was never meant to do. He stands for so much force. You may
apply things as you please, but if you don't use them according to
their relative capacity, the unused value has to be paid
for--somewhere."

"That's a nice principle!" said Marion. "I like that I should like
to be paid for what I _might_ be good for!"

Frank Sunderline laughed.

"It's a good principle; because by it things settle themselves, in
the long run. You may take mahogany or pine to make a table, and one
will answer the common convenience of a table as well as the other;
but you will learn not to take mahogany when the pine will serve the
purpose. You will keep it for what the pine wouldn't be fit for;
which wouldn't come to pass if the pine weren't cheapest. Women
wouldn't get those places to tend counters and keep books, if the
world hadn't found out that it was poor economy, as a general rule,
to take men for it."

"But what do you say about mental power? About pay for teaching, for
instance?" asked Ray.

"Why, you're coming round to _my_ side!" exclaimed Marion. "I should
really like to know _where_ you are?"

"I am wherever I can get nearest to the truth of things," said Ray,
smiling.

"That," said Sunderline, "is one of the specialties that is
getting righted. Women _are_ being paid more, in proportion, for
intellectual service, and the nearer you come to the pure mental
power, the nearer you come to equality in recompense. A woman who
writes a clever book, or paints a good picture, or sculptures a good
statue, can get as much for her work as a man. But where _time_ is
paid for,--where it is personal service,--the old principle at the
root of things comes in. Men open up the wildernesses, men sail the
seas, work the mines, forge the iron, build the cities, defend the
nations while they grow, do the physical work of the world, _make
way_ for all the finishings of edu