able to conceive that the vast majority of
the affairs of the world went on unconnected by a single thread with her
own destiny.

"I won't have eleven children," she asserted; "I won't have the eyes of
an old woman. She looks at one up and down, up and down, as if one were
a horse."

"We must have a son and we must have a daughter," said Terence, putting
down the letters, "because, let alone the inestimable advantage of being
our children, they'd be so well brought up." They went on to sketch an
outline of the ideal education--how their daughter should be required
from infancy to gaze at a large square of cardboard painted blue, to
suggest thoughts of infinity, for women were grown too practical;
and their son--he should be taught to laugh at great men, that is, at
distinguished successful men, at men who wore ribands and rose to the
tops of their trees. He should in no way resemble (Rachel added) St.
John Hirst.

At this Terence professed the greatest admiration for St. John Hirst.
Dwelling upon his good qualities he became seriously convinced of them;
he had a mind like a torpedo, he declared, aimed at falsehood. Where
should we all be without him and his like? Choked in weeds; Christians,
bigots,--why, Rachel herself, would be a slave with a fan to sing songs
to men when they felt drowsy.

"But you'll never see it!" he exclaimed; "because with all your virtues
you don't, and you never will, care with every fibre of your being
for the pursuit of truth! You've no respect for facts, Rachel; you're
essentially feminine." She did not trouble to deny it, nor did she think
good to produce the one unanswerable argument against the merits which
Terence admired. St. John Hirst said that she was in love with him; she
would never forgive that; but the argument was not one to appeal to a
man.

"But I like him," she said, and she thought to herself that she also
pitied him, as one pities those unfortunate people who are outside the
warm mysterious globe full of changes and miracles in which we ourselves
move about; she thought that it must be very dull to be St. John Hirst.

She summed up what she felt about him by saying that she would not kiss
him supposing he wished it, which was not likely.

As if some apology were due to Hirst for the kiss which she then
bestowed upon him, Terence protested:

"And compared with Hirst I'm a perfect Zany."

The clock here struck twelve instead of eleven.

"We're wasting the morning