‘Which idea was that, Stephen?’
‘Why, didn’t you notice what she said: “I’d like to be God and be able to do things”?’
‘Yes,’ he said after a moment’s reflection. ‘That’s a fine idea in the abstract; but I doubt of its happiness in the long-run.’
‘Doubt of its happiness? Come now? what could there be better, after all? Isn’t it good enough to be God? What more do you want?’
The girl’s tone was quizzical, but her great black eyes blazed with some thought of sincerity which lay behind the fun. The young man shook his head with a smile of kindly tolerance as he answered:
‘It isn’t that—surely you must know it. I’m ambitious enough, goodness knows; but there are bounds to satisfy even me. But I’m not sure that the good little thing isn’t right. She seemed, somehow, to hit a bigger truth than she knew: “fancy having to be just.”’
‘I don’t see much difficulty in that. Anyone can be just!’
‘Pardon me,’ he answered, ‘there is perhaps nothing so difficult in the whole range of a man’s work.’ There was distinct defiance in the girl’s eyes as she asked:
‘A man’s work! Why a man’s work? Isn’t it a woman’s work also?’
‘Well, I suppose it ought to be, theoretically; practically it isn’t.’