“Ach, don’t quarrel,” said the Advanced Lady sweetly. “Yes, it is a novel—upon the Modern Woman. For this seems to me the woman’s hour. It is mysterious and almost prophetic, it is the symbol of the true advanced woman: not one of those violent creatures who deny their sex and smother their frail wings under... under—”
“The English tailor-made?” from Frau Kellermann.
“I was not going to put it like that. Rather, under the lying garb of false masculinity!”
“Such a subtle distinction!” I murmured.
“Whom then,” asked Fräulein Elsa, looking adoringly at the Advanced Lady—“whom then do you consider the true woman?”
“She is the incarnation of comprehending Love!”
“But my dear Frau Professor,” protested Frau Kellermann, “you must remember that one has so few opportunities for exhibiting Love within the family circle nowadays. One’s husband is at business all day, and naturally desires to sleep when he returns home—one’s children are out of the lap and in at the university before one can lavish anything at all upon them!”
“But Love is not a question of lavishing,” said the Advanced Lady. “It is the lamp carried in the bosom touching with serene rays all the heights and depths of—”
“Darkest Africa,” I murmured flippantly.
She did not hear.