Page:HG Wells--secret places of the heart.djvu/89

Rh How we should jostle in the streets! But the early Christians have tried it already. The thing is impossible.”

“Very well, then, we have to make women more responsible again. In a new capacity. We have to educate them far more seriously as sources of energy—as guardians and helpers of men. And we have to suppress them far more rigorously as tempters and dissipaters. Instead of mothering babies they have to mother the race....”

A vision of women made responsible floated before his eyes.

“Is that man working better since you got hold of him? If not, why not?”

“Or again,—Jane Smith was charged with neglecting her lover to the common danger.... The inspector said the man was in a pitiful state, morally quite uncombed and infested with vulgar, showy ideas....”

The doctor laughed, telescoped his pencil and stood up.

It became evident after dinner that Sir Richmond also had been thinking over the afternoon’s conversation.

He and Dr. Martineau sat in wide-armed cane chairs on the lawn with a wickerwork table bearing coffee cups and little glasses between them. A few other diners chatted and whis-