in demanding this ‘make-weight.’  The woman gives her love, if you will.  It is the art treasure, the gilded vase thrown in with the pound of tea; but the tea has to be paid for.”

“It all sounds very clever,” commented the Old Maid; “yet I fail to see what good comes of ridiculing a thing one’s heart tells one is sacred.”

“Do not be so sure I am wishful to ridicule,” answered the Minor Poet.  “Love is a wondrous statue God carved with His own hands and placed in the Garden of Life, long ago.  And man, knowing not sin, worshipped her, seeing her beautiful.  Till the time came when man learnt evil; then saw that the statue was naked, and was ashamed of it.  Since when he has been busy, draping it, now in the fashion of this age, now in the fashion of that.  We have shod her in dainty bottines, regretting the size of her feet.  We employ the best artistes to design for her cunning robes that shall disguise her shape.  Each season we fix fresh millinery upon her changeless head.  We hang around her robes of woven words.  Only the promise of her ample breasts we cannot altogether hide, shocking us not a little; only that remains to tell us that beneath the tawdry tissues still stands the changeless statue God carved with His own hands.”

“I like you better when you talk like that,” said the Old Maid; “but I never feel quite sure of you.  All I mean, of course, is that money should not be her first consideration.  Marriage for money—it is not marriage; one cannot speak of it.  Of course, one must be reasonable.”

“You mean,” persisted the Minor Poet, “you would have her think also of her dinner, of her clothes, her necessities, luxuries.”

“It is not only for herself,” answered the Old Maid.

“For whom?” demanded the Minor Poet.

The white hands of the Old Maid fluttered on her lap, revealing her trouble; for of the old school is this sweet friend of mine.

“There are the children to be considered,” I explained.  “A woman feels it even without knowing.  It is her instinct.”

The Old Maid smiled on me her thanks.

“It is where I was leading,” said the Minor Poet.  “Woman has been appointed by Nature the trustee of the children.  It is her duty to think of them, to plan for them.  If in marriage she does not take the future into consideration, she is untrue to her trust.”

“Before you go further,” interrupted the Philosopher, “there is an important point to be considered.  Are children better or worse for a pampered upbringing?  Is not poverty often the best school?”

“It is what I always tell George,” remarked the Woman of the World, “when he grumbles at the tradesmen’s books.  If Papa could only have seen his way to being a poor man, I feel I should have been a better wife.”

“Please don’t suggest the possibility,” I begged the Woman of the World; “the thought is too bewildering.”

“You were never imaginative,” replied the Woman of the World.

“Not to that extent,” I admitted.

“‘The best mothers make the worst children,’” quoted the Girton Girl.  “I intend to bear that in mind.”

“Your mother was a very beautiful character—one of the most beautiful I ever knew,” remarked the Old Maid.

“There is some truth in the saying,” agreed the Minor Poet, “but only because it is the exception; and Nature invariably puts forth all her powers to counteract the result of deviation from her laws.  Were it the rule, then the bad mother would be the good mother and the good mother the bad mother.  And—”

“Please don’t go on,” said the Woman of the World.  “I was up late last night.”

“I was merely going to show,” explained the Minor Poet, “that all roads lead to the law that the good mother is the best mother.  Her duty is to her children, to guard their infancy, to take thought for their equipment.”

“Do you seriously ask us to believe,” demanded the Old Maid, “that the type of woman who does marry for money considers for a single moment any human being but herself?”

“Not consciously, perhaps,” admitted the Minor Poet.  “Our instincts, that they may guide us easily, are purposely made selfish.  The flower secretes honey for its own purposes, not with any sense of charity towards the bee.  Man works, as he thinks, for beer and baccy; in reality, for the benefit of unborn generations.  The woman, in acting selfishly, is assisting Nature’s plans.  In olden days she chose her mate for his strength.  She, possibly enough, thought only of herself; he could best provide for her then simple wants, best guard her from the disagreeable accidents of nomadic life.  But Nature, unseen, directing her, was thinking of the savage brood needing still more a bold protector.  Wealth now is the substitute for strength.  The rich man is the strong man.  The woman’s heart unconsciously goes out to him.”

“Do men never marry for money?” inquired the Girton Girl.  “I ask merely for information.  Maybe I have been misinformed, but I have heard of countries where the dot is considered of almost more importance than the bride.”

“The German officer,” I ventured to strike in, “is literally on sale.  Young lieutenants are most expensive, and even an elderly colonel costs a girl a hundred thousand marks.”

“You mean,” corrected the Minor Poet, “costs her father.  The Continental husband demands a dowry with his wife, and sees that he gets it.  He in his turn has to save and scrape for years to provide each of his daughters with the necessary dot.  It comes to the same thing precisely.  Your argument could only apply were woman equally with man a wealth producer.  As it is, a woman’s wealth is invariably the result of a marriage, either her own or that of some shrewd ancestress.  And as regards the heiress, the principle of sale and purchase, if I may be forgiven the employment of common terms, is still more religiously enforced.  It is not often that the heiress is given away; stolen she may be occasionally, much to the indignation of Lord Chancellors and other guardians of such property; the thief is very properly punished—imprisoned, if need be.  If handed over legitimately, her price is strictly exacted, not always in money—that she possesses herself, maybe in sufficiency; it enables her to bargain for other advantages no less serviceable to her children—for title, place, position.  In the same way the Neolithic woman, herself of exceptional strength and ferocity, may have been enabled to bestow a thought upon her savage lover’s beauty, his prehistoric charm of manner; thus in other directions no less necessary assisting the development of the race.”

“I cannot argue with you,” said the Old Maid.  “I know one case.  They were both poor; it would have made no difference to her, but it did to him.  Maybe I am wrong, but it seems to me that, as you say, our instincts are given us to guide us.  I do not know.  The future is not in our hands; it does not belong to us.  Perhaps it were wiser to listen to the voices that are sent to us.”

“I remember a case, also,” said the Woman of the World.  She had risen to prepare the tea, and was standing with her back to us.  “Like the woman you speak of, she was poor, but one of the sweetest creatures I have ever known.  I cannot help thinking it would have been good for the world had she been a mother.”

“My dear lady,” cried the Minor Poet, “you help me!”

“I always do, according to you,” laughed the Woman of the World.  “I appear to resemble the