pless
limbs. "And these are--mothers."

"Most of them."

"The more I see of these things the more complex I find your problems.
This, for instance, is a surprise. That news from Paris was a surprise."

In a little while he spoke again:

"These are mothers. Presently, I suppose, I shall get into the
modern way of seeing things. I have old habits of mind clinging about
me--habits based, I suppose, on needs that are over and done with. Of
course, in our time, a woman was supposed not only to bear children,
but to cherish them, to devote herself to them, to educate them--all
the essentials of moral and mental education a child owed its mother. Or
went without. Quite a number, I admit, went without. Nowadays, clearly,
there is no more need for such care than if they were butterflies. I see
that! Only there was an ideal--that figure of a grave, patient woman,
silently and serenely mistress of a home, mother and maker of men--to
love her was a sort of worship--"

He stopped and repeated, "A sort of worship."

"Ideals change," said the little man, "as needs change."

Graham awoke from an instant reverie and Asano repeated his words.
Graham's mind returned to the thing at hand.

"Of course I see the perfect reasonableness of this Restraint,
soberness, the matured thought, the unselfish a act, they are
necessities of the barbarous state, the life of dangers. Dourness is
man's tribute to unconquered nature. But man has conquered nature now
for all practical purposes--his political affairs are managed by Bosses
with a black police--and life is joyous."

He looked at the dancers again. "Joyous," he said.

"There are weary moments," said the little officer, reflectively.

"They all look young. Down there I should be visibly the oldest man. And
in my own time I should have passed as middle-aged."

"They are young. There are few old people in this class in the work
cities."

"How is that?"

"Old people's lives are not so pleasant as they used to be, unless they
are rich to hire lovers and helpers. And we have an institution called
Euthanasy."

"Ah! that Euthanasy!" said Graham. "The easy death?"

"The easy death. It is the last pleasure. The Euthanasy Company does it
well. People will pay the sum--it is a costly thing--long beforehand,
go off to some pleasure city and return impoverished and weary, very
weary."

"There is a lot left for me to understand," said Graham after a pause.
"Yet I see the logic of it all.