"You don't believe in all that, eh?"
"Oh, I don't say that. I am very far from being conservative on the subject of women's work. I am inclined on the whole to think that women have souls, and, that being so, and the age of brute force being past, it is to my mind a natural corollary that they should choose their own work."
"I don't see that at all, sir. I don't see that at all," said the elderly gentleman, throwing himself into a chair, and talking very warmly. "Souls! What have souls got to do with it, I should like to know? Can they do it without becoming blunted? That is the question."
"I confess I think it is a strange life for a woman to choose, but I know one or two women—one certainly—who would make far better doctors than I ever shall."
"Oh, they are a necessity! Mind, sir, I believe women-doctors are a necessity; so it is a mercy they want to do it; but why the devil should my niece take it up? She is not the sort of woman you mean at all. To think that a fine-looking, gentle, gifted girl, who might marry any man she liked, and move in any society she chose, should spend her days in an atmosphere of—what is the smell in this room, sir?"
Dudley laughed. "Carbolic, I suppose," he said. "I use a good deal of it."
"Carbolic! Well, think of a beautiful woman finding it necessary to live in an atmosphere of—carbolic!"
Dudley laughed again, his visitor's voice was so expressive.
"There are minor drawbacks, of course," he said. "But I strongly agree with you, that there is a part of our work which ought to be in the hands of women; and I, for one, will gladly hand it over to them."
"I believe you! Oh, when all is said, it's grimy work, doctoring—grimy work!"