physiologically
fatuous. There must be one of two results--either the average imbeciles
are sacrificed by thousands to a dozen or so of brilliant geniuses, or
it's the other way about."

"Whichever way it is," said Miss Quincey, with her back, so to speak, to
the wall, "it's all part of civilization, of our intellectual progress."

"They're not the same thing. And it isn't civilization, it's intellectual
savagery. It isn't progress either, it's a blind rush, an inhuman
scrimmage--the very worst form of the struggle for existence. It doesn't
even mean survival of the intellectually fittest. It develops
monstrosities. It defeats its own ends by brutalising the intellect
itself. And the worst enemies of women are women. I swear, if I were a
woman, I'd rather do without an education than get it at that price. Or
I'd educate myself. After all, that's the way of the fittest--the one in
a thousand."

"Do you not approve of educated women then?" Miss Quincey was quite
shaken by this cataclysmal outbreak, this overturning and shattering of
the old beacons and landmarks.

He stared into the distance.

"Oh yes, I approve of them when they are really educated--not when
they are like that. You won't get the flower of womanhood out of a
forcing-house like St. Sidwell's; though I daresay it produces pumpkins
to perfection."

What did he say to Miss Vivian then? Miss Quincey could not think badly
of a system that could produce women like Miss Vivian.

A cloud came over his angry eyes as they stared into the distance.

"That's it. It hasn't produced them. They have produced it."

Miss Quincey smiled. Evidently consistency was not to be expected of this
young man. He was so young, and so irresponsible and passionate. She
admired him for it; and not only for that; she admired him--she could not
say exactly why, but she thought it was because he had such a beautiful,
bumpy, intellectual forehead. And as she sat beside him and shook to that
vibrating passion of his, she felt as if the blue moon had risen again
and was shining through the trees of the park; and she was happy,
absolutely, indubitably happy and safe; for she felt that he was her
friend and her protector and the defender of her cause. It was for her
that he raged and maddened and behaved himself altogether so
unreasonably.

Now as it happened, Cautley did champion certain theories which Miss
Cursiter, when she met them, denounced as physiologist's fads. But it was