He had begun by thinking about the colour of
Rhoda's eyes. He could not for the life of him remember whether they were
blue or green, till something (Miss Quincey's eyes perhaps) reminded him
that they were grey, pure grey, without a taint of green or a shadow of
blue in them. That was what his mind was running on as he looked into the
distance and Miss Quincey imagined that his bumpy intellectual forehead
was bulging with great thoughts. And now Miss Quincey supplied a
convenient pivot for the wild gyrations of his wrath. He got up and with
his hands behind his back he seemed to be lashing himself into a fury
with his coat-tail.
"The whole thing is one-sided and artificial and absurd. Bad enough for
men, but fatal for women. Any system that unfits them for their proper
functions--"
"And do we know--have we decided--yet--what they are?" Miss Quincey was
anxious to sustain her part in the dialogue with credit.
He stared, not at the distance but at her.
"Why, surely," he said more gently, "to be women first--to be wives and
mothers."
She drew her cape a little closer round her and turned from him with
half-shut eyes. She seemed at once to be protecting herself against
his theory and blinding her sight to her own perishing and thwarted
woman-hood.
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