or the
purposes of re-populating the world by capturing four symmetrical young
men. You are the fifth. The Regents of the New Race University will
select for you several girls who, theoretically, are best qualified to
become the mothers of your----"

"Stop!" shouted Langdon, tearing violently at the net. "I don't want you
to talk that way to me!"

"What way?"

"You know perfectly well," he retorted, blushing vividly. "I won't stand
it!"

"What a slave to prudery and smug convention you are," she observed with
amused contempt. "Nobody in the University is going to shock your
modesty."

"Well, what _are_ they going to do?"

"Turn you loose in the preserve after the Regents have inspected you."

"And then?"

"Oh, I suppose two or three girls will be selected."

"To do w-what?"

"To pay you marked attention."

"M-m-marked _what_?"

"Attention. Two or three girls will begin to court you."

"How?"

"Oh, the usual way--by sending you flowers and books and bon-bons, and
asking permission to call on you in your cave," she said carelessly.

There was an embarrassed pause, then:

"Will _you_ be one of those--those aspirants to my hand?" he inquired.

She said indifferently: "I hope not. I'm sure I don't desire to be the
mother of----"

"Stop! I tell you to stop conversing on such topics!" he yelled,
struggling and squirming and finally rolling over, all fours in the air.

"I want to get up!" he shouted. "My position is undignified! Anybody'd
think I was a prize animal. I don't like this poultry talk! I'm a _man_!
I'm no bench-winner. And if ever I marry and p-p-produce p-p-progeny, it
will be somebody _I_ select, not somebody who selects _me_!"

The girl looked at him sternly.

"No," she said. "For centuries man has mated from sentiment and filled
the earth with mental and physical degeneracy. Now woman steps in. It is
her turn. And she flings aside precedent, prejudice, and sentiment--for
the good of the human race! and joining hands with Science marches
forward inexorably toward the millennium!"

The girl was so earnest, so naive, so emotionally stirred by the picture
evoked that she enacted in pretty gestures the allegory of womanhood
trampling upon sentimental emotion and turning toward Science with arms
outstretched.

Langdon, who had managed to sit up, regarded her with terrified interest.

"Would you be amiable enough to remove this net?" he asked, shivering.

"I shall take you before the B