"No, I don't say that; but there are things it may become a woman to do, and which it doesn't quite so well become a man to profit by. I don't think Blanchet——"
"Mr. Blanchet seems to have a higher idea of what a woman's friendship may be than you have, Mr. Heron. He does not see any degradation in allowing a woman to hold him out a helping hand when he wants one. I like his ideas better than yours. You say you would have done this little service for him if you had been allowed. Why should there be any greater degradation to him in having it done by me? At all events you can't wonder if I don't see it all at once."
"Of course if you are satisfied and pleased, there is nothing more to be said in the matter."
"I am satisfied and pleased. Why should I not be? I asked a friend to let me do something to help him, and he answered me just in the spirit in which I spoke. Of course I am glad to find that there is even one man who could take a friendly offer in a friendly way. There are not many such men, I suppose?"
Victor could not help smiling at her emphatic way of expressing her scorn of men.
"I do believe you have really turned yourself misanthropical by reading 'Le Misanthrope,'" he said.
"Well, why should there not be a woman Alceste? although I never knew any woman in real life more worthy to be classed with him than the men we meet in real life are. Miss Alceste, I think, would sound very prettily. I wish I could think myself entitled to bear such a name?"
"Or Miss Misanthrope," he suggested. "How would that do for a young lady's name?"
"Admirably, I think. That would get over all the difficulty too, and save foolish persons from thinking that one was setting up for another Alceste. I should like very much to be called Miss Misanthrope."
"If you go on as you are doing, you will soon be entitled to bear the name," said Victor gravely. "At the present moment I don't know that I should much object to that."