Katherine reddened. That her dear mistress should think her so stupid!
"I did not intend to. It is very difficult—even the greatest gentlemen do not seem to know their places always."
"A man finds his place near the woman he wants to talk to—you must not forget that, girl!"
"It is a little mean and puts the woman in a false position often."
"She prefers that to indifference. There is one very curious thing about women, the greatest prude is not altogether inwardly displeased at the knowledge that she exercises a physical attraction for men. Just as the greatest intellectual among men feels more flattered if exceptional virility is imputed to him, than all the spiritual gifts! Virility—a quality which he shares with the lower animals, spirituality a gift which he inherits from God. Oh! we are a mass of incongruities, we humans! and brutal nature eventually wins the game. Animal savagery is always the outcome of too much civilisation. And unless the dark ages of ignorance fall upon us once more, so that we can again be sufficiently simple to believe en masse in a God, I feel our cycle is over and that we shall be burnt out of time."
Then presently, as her secretary was moving towards the door, Her Ladyship remarked irrelevantly:
"Look here, girl—Do you think it is in your nature ever to love really, or are you going to let brain conquer always?"
"I—do not know," faltered Katherine.
"Love is the only thing on earth which is sublime. This evening until you come down after dinner, I recommend you to read the 'Letters of Abelard and Heloise'."