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268 to Adelaide she had to speak out; it was n't to any of the others and so they could afford to pose; and my backing up Adelaide did n't hurt me any, for I'm simply regarded as the irreverent scoffer. What I like most about men is that they never seem to puzzle themselves with fine ethical questions the way women do. 'They do not make me sick discussing their duty towards God,'—as Walt Whitman says of the animals." "You think that's a poor practice?" Floyd asked.

"Yes, rather contemptible—does n't it seem so to you? It has a belittling effect on the mind—for girls take small subjects and treat them with such a big seriousness."

"That's a very novel and interesting view of girls," said Floyd. "I always thought of them as taking large subjects and treating them frivolously—at least with a light touch."

"Of course those are the nice girls that do that," replied Marion. "The nice and most useful."

"I'll concede they're the nicest," Floyd said. "If seems hardly right they should be useful, too."

"But they are; it's that light touch that makes them so," Marion cried. "Why, I'll show you—only you've got to use your imagination. You're a man and you've done a hard day's work, and one of your thumbs is all sore and blistered from it, and you sit down by the road and tear a strip off your handkerchief to make a bandage. Then you try to put the bandage on your sore thumb, and you can't get it tied, though you try and try and try, with hand and teeth. And finally, you throw away the rag in despair and go on limping home, just as you are—"

"Why do I limp?" Floyd asked. "I thought it was my thumb that was sore."

"I told you that you'd have to use your imagination," she answered. "You limp; I don't know why. You go limping home, now holding your thumb this way with your