"That's a truth that cuts both ways, isn't it?" said Janet.
She had given up being astonished at Cornelia's peculiar mixture of the old and the new in the matter of theories about men and women. She merely wondered to what weird angle Cornelia meant to shift her outlook now.
"The point is," continued Cornelia serenely, "that a woman's sex emotion is generally excited by something that takes her fancy; a man's, by something that stirs his blood. The mind plays the bigger part in the one case, the body in the other. That's why, in the duel of sex, the psychological moment is so important to the woman, the physiological moment to the man.
"These acute distinctions are quite beyond me. A man has as much gray matter as a woman, or even more. Then why should he let his mental processes suffer paralysis whenever a nice woman looks at him?"
"Well, that's one of the mysteries that marriage helps us to understand, Araminta. In the life of a man there come these physiological moments, these sex storms, different from anything in the experience of a woman. I don't mean to say that men have more physical passion than women. But there are occasions when their physical passion takes a more violently concentrated form. Mazie, in her vulgar little way, isn't so far wrong when she says: 'Scratch a fine gentleman, and you'll find a cave man.'"
"Do you mean to tell me that there are absolutely no men who feel about love as we do?"
"I've never met one. Have you?"
Janet was thinking: "Surely Robert isn't like that!" Aloud she said nothing. There was a dangerous glint in her friend's eyes. Cornelia had an uncanny way of penetrating one's thoughts when Robert was the object of them. Had she accomplished this feat of divination again? At all events, an acrid note entered her voice as she continued:
"Is it really only Monsieur St. Hilaire that you can't make up your mind about? If so, take my advice. Come down off your high horse and make the most of your good fortune."
"My good fortune!"