hands is trusted to determine great matters. They may not be beautiful
(I have seen a faded little woman of fifty, of no family or wealth,
whose salon attracted ministers of state), they haven't the education,
nor the liberties that your women enjoy, and, in the mass, they are not
regarded--how do you say?--chivalrously. Yet there they are!

"And why? Because they are capable of great passions, great desires.
They are willing to take the art of womanhood seriously, make sacrifices
for it, as one must for any art, in order to triumph in it."

Rose thought this over rather dubiously. It was a new notion to her--or
almost new. Portia had told her once she never would have any trouble
making her husband "want" her as much as she liked. This idea of making
a serious art of your power to attract and influence men, seemed to
range itself in the same category.

"But suppose," she objected, "one doesn't want to triumph at it? Suppose
one wants to be a--person, rather than just a woman?"

"There are other careers indeed," Madame Gréville admitted, "and one can
follow them in the same spirit, make the sacrifices--pay the price they
demand. _Mon dieu!_ How I have preached. Now you shall talk to me. It
was for that I took you captive and ran away with you."

For the next half-hour, until the car stopped in front of her house,
Rose acted on this request; told about her life before and since her
marriage to Rodney, about her friends, her amusements--anything that
came into her mind. But she lingered before getting out of the car, to
say: