“All aptitude? No, Mrs. Scorbitt. But I would ask you to remember that since there have been people on this earth, and women consequently, there has never been discovered a feminine brain to which we owe a discovery in the domain of science analogous to the discoveries of Aristotle, Euclid, Kepler, or Laplace.”
“Is that a reason? Is it inevitable that the future should be as the past?”
“Hum! That which has not happened for thousands of years is not likely to happen.”
“Then we must resign ourselves to our fate, Mr. Maston. And as we are indeed good—”
“And how good!” interrupted J. T. Maston, with all the amiable gallantry of which a philosopher crammed with x was capable.
Mrs. Scorbitt was quite ready to be convinced.
“Well, Mr. Maston,” she said, “each to his lot in this world. Remain the extraordinary mathematician that you are. Give yourself entirely to the problems of that immense enterprise to which you and your friends have devoted their lives! I will remain the good woman I ought to be, and assist you with the means.”
“For which you will have our eternal gratitude,” said J. T. Maston.
Mrs. Scorbitt blushed deliciously, for she felt, if not for philosophers in general, at least for J. T. Maston, a truly strange sympathy. Is not a woman’s heart unfathomable?
An immense enterprise it was which this wealthy American widow had resolved to support with large sums of money. The object of its promoters was as follows:—