"I do hope you will go home soon," he added.

"Yes," said Richard, "and I, so do I hope so. But I've work to do now. I
dare not, I cannot, leave it. Lucy would be the last to ask me;--you saw
her letter yesterday. Now listen to me, Rip. I want to make you be just
to women."

Then he read Ripton a lecture on erring women, speaking of them as if
he had known them and studied them for years. Clever, beautiful, but
betrayed by love, it was the first duty of all true men to cherish and
redeem them. "We turn them into curses, Rip; these divine creatures."
And the world suffered for it. That--that was the root of all the evil
in the world!

"I don't feel anger or horror at these poor women, Rip! It's strange. I
knew what they were when we came home in the boat. But I do--it tears
my heart to see a young girl given over to an old man--a man she doesn't
love. That's shame!--Don't speak of it."

Forgetting to contest the premiss, that all betrayed women are betrayed
by love, Ripton was quite silenced. He, like most young men, had
pondered somewhat on this matter, and was inclined to be sentimental
when he was not hungry. They walked in the moonlight by the railings of
the park. Richard harangued at leisure, while Ripton's teeth chattered.
Chivalry might be dead, but still there was something to do, went the
strain. The lady of the day had not been thrown in the hero's path
without an object, he said; and he was sadly right there. He did not
express the thing clearly; nevertheless Ripton understood him to mean,
he intended to rescue that lady from further transgressions, and show
a certain scorn of the world. That lady, and then other ladies unknown,
were to be rescued. Ripton was to help. He and Ripton were to be the
knights of this enterprise. When appealed to, Ripton acquiesced, and
shivered. Not only were they to be knights, they would have to be
Titans, for the powers of the world, the spurious ruling Social Gods,
would have to be defied and overthrown. And Titan number one flung up
his handsome bold face as if to challenge base Jove on the spot; and
Titan number two strained the upper button of his coat to meet across
his pocket-handkerchief on his chest, and warmed his fingers under his
coat-tails. The moon had fallen from her high seat and was in the mists
of the West, when he was allowed to seek his blankets, and the cold
acting on his friend's eloquence made Ripton's flesh very contrite. The
poor fellow had thinn