“Oh, he’s rather brutal. He takes the Darwinian view of things, you know. He says all women are in the same trade—man-hunting—so they run one another down.”
“But I’m not running one another down. I’m running us down en bloc. And, besides, that isn’t the Darwinian view at all. It’s the males who always seek the females and develop the lively colors to attract them. Don’t you remember Tennyson?—
“ ‘In the spring a fuller crimson comes upon the robin’s breast.’ ”
“Yes, but that’s only in the lower creation,” argued Matthew Strang.
“Do you make a distinction? But I am ready to agree with your friend—since he isn’t here. We are man-hunters. What a pity, though, that civilization has so reversed the order of natural selection that the human female has to be picked instead of picking the male. See the result!”
“I see what you mean. Man has degenerated physically.”
“And woman morally. We adore the beauties of your purse instead of your person.”
“And so we develop brain to get purses with. Really, the effect is not so bad.”
“Brains are cheap to-day; and they don’t improve the appearance, anyhow. If people wore their brains outside—but who is this brutal friend of yours who gauges my sex so well? Do I know him?”
“I shouldn’t think so. He’s just back from strange places.”