Rolfe meditated for a moment.

'You remember that fellow Wager -- the man you met at Abbott's? His wife
died a year ago, and now he has bolted, leaving his two children in a
lodging-house.'

'What a damned scoundrel!' cried Hugh, with a note of honest
indignation.

'Well, yes; but there's something to be said for him. It's a natural
revolt against domestic bondage. Of course, as things are, someone else
has to bear the bother and expense; but that's only our state of
barbarism. A widower with two young children and no income -- imagine
the position. Of course, he ought to be able to get rid of them in some
legitimate way -- state institution -- anything you like that answers to
reason.'

'I don't know whether it would work.'

'Some day it will. People talk such sentimental rubbish about children.
I would have the parents know nothing about them till they're ten or
twelve years old. They're a burden, a hindrance, a perpetual source of
worry and misery. Most wives are sacrificed to the next generation -- an
outrageous absurdity. People snivel over the deaths of babies; I see
nothing to grieve about. If a child dies, why, the probabilities are it
_ought_ to die; if it lives, it lives, and you get survival of the
fittest. We don't want to choke the world with people, most of them
rickety and wheezing; let us be healthy, and have breathing space.'

'I believe in _that_,' said Carnaby.