"Extensively."
"And you are a great master in the wiles of women by this time, I suppose," said Hoffland satirically.
"No, you misunderstand me," replied Mowbray, without observing the boy's smile. "I never shall pretend to understand women; but I can use my eyes, and I can read the open page before me."
"The open page? What do you mean?"
"I mean that the history of the modern world, the social history, has a great key-note—is a maze unless you keep constantly in view the existence of this element—women."
"I should say it was: we could not well get on without them."
"The middle age originated the present deification of woman," continued Mowbray philosophically, "and the old knights left us the legacy. We have long ago discarded for its opposite the scriptural doctrine that the man is not of the woman, but the woman of the man; and we justify ourselves by the strange plea, 'they are so weak.'"
"Well, are they not?"
"Woman weak? Poor Charles! Parliaments, inquisitions, secret tribunals and executioners' axes are straws compared to them. They smile, and man kneels; they weep, and his moral judgment is effaced like a shadow: he is soft clay in their hands. One caress from a girl makes a fool of a giant. Have you read the history of Samson?"
"Vile misogynist!" said Hoffland, "you are really too bad!"