Page:Terminations (New York, Harper and Brothers, 1895).djvu/30

18 withdrawal; he only opened out the notebook with a more motherly pat. "Dora Forbes, I gather, takes the ground, the same as Guy Walsingham's, that the larger latitude has simply got to come. He holds that it has got to be squarely faced. Of course his sex makes him a less prejudiced witness. But an authoritative word from Mr. Paraday—from the point of view of his sex, you know, would go right round the globe. He takes the line that we haven't got to face it?"

I was bewildered: it sounded somehow as if there were three sexes. My interlocutor's pencil was poised, my private responsibility great. I simply sat staring, however, and only found presence of mind to say: "Is this Miss Forbes a gentleman?"

Mr. Morrow hesitated an instant, smiling. "It wouldn't be 'Miss'—there's a wife!"

"I mean is she a man?"

"The wife?"—Mr. Morrow, for a moment, was as confused as myself. But, when I explained that I alluded to Dora Forbes in person, he informed me, with visible amusement at my being so out of it, that this was the "pen-name" of an indubitable male—he had a big red mustache. "He only assumes a feminine personality because the ladies are such popular favorites. A great deal of interest is felt in this assumption, and there's every prospect of its being widely imitated." Our host at this moment joined us again, and Mr. Morrow remarked invitingly that he should be happy