“Kipling!” said Georgia, in high scorn.
“I thought you admired him?”
“So I do. I think he is an excellent authority on men—at least, the men seem to find it so—but what can he, or any man, know about women? At best they can only see results and guess at causes. They observe very carefully all that they can see, and give us the result of their observations in knowing little remarks, half cynical and half patronising, and think they have gauged a woman’s nature to its very depths. Then she does something that throws all their calculations wrong, and they say that she is shallow and fickle, and, above all, unwomanly; whereas it is only that either their observations or their deductions were incorrect.”
“Still,” said Dick, “I am inclined to agree with a very comforting doctrine I heard you enunciating to Stratford the other night. You were speaking of the principle of balance, and you said that when one side of the truth had been exclusively insisted upon for a time the pendulum swung back and the other side became prominent until it was the first one’s turn again. I thought it was a very good idea—for the people who can keep just in the middle. Those who rush to either extreme must find themselves rather left when the pendulum swings.”
“But what has that to do with our present subject?” asked Georgia.
“It seems to me to apply. You see, the New—I beg your pardon; I know you dislike the term—the modern female has had rather a long innings lately. You have often said that you don’t agree with all her developments, which seems pretty clear proof that she has at any rate approached the extreme point. Well, Kipling comes to show us the other side of the matter, exaggerated, perhaps; but that is unavoidable, owing to the exaggerations on the lady’s part. At least, that is how it strikes me.”
“North, where are you?” said Stratford, appearing suddenly on the terrace. “The Chief wants you for something.”
Dick rose and disappeared, with an apology to Georgia, who leaned back in her chair and smiled.
“He is improving wonderfully,” she said to herself. “Two months ago he would never have talked as he has to-night. Crushing assertions without any proof used to be his idea of arguments. He must have taken a lesson from Mr Stratford. Was he really listening all the time I was talking to him the other night? He has certainly changed very much, and I am very glad of it. It would have been most unpleasant if the only man who could not bring himself to be civil to me was such an old friend, and Mab’s brother.”
If Mabel could have heard this soliloquy, it is probable that she would have smiled darkly to herself, and remarked that her dear Georgie must have been considerably piqued by Dick’s cavalier behaviour for her to make such a point of having overcome his opposition to herself. However, there was no one at hand to point out to Georgia that she felt more satisfaction in one amicable conversation with her former lover than in all the attentions of Stratford and the doctor, who entertained no prejudice against medical women, and always appreciated the honour of a talk with her. It may be that it was merely the feeling that she had been victorious in disarming Dick’s hostility which gave such a zest to her intercourse with him; but if this was so, an incident which occurred a few days later ought to have cast some additional light upon the subject.