“Women of intellect” was his next theme: here he was at home. A “woman of intellect,” it appeared, was a sort of lusus naturae , a luckless accident, a thing for which there was neither place nor use in creation, wanted neither as wife nor worker. Beauty anticipated her in the first office. He believed in his soul that lovely, placid, and passive feminine mediocrity was the only pillow on which manly thought and sense could find rest for its aching temples; and as to work, male mind alone could work to any good practical result⁠— hein ?

This hein? was a note of interrogation intended to draw from me contradiction or objection. However, I only said⁠—“ Cela ne me regarde pas: je ne m’en soucie pas; ” 191 and presently added⁠—“May I go, Monsieur? They have rung the bell for the second ‘ déjeuner ’ ” ( i.e. luncheon).

“What of that? You are not hungry?”

“Indeed I was,” I said; “I had had nothing since breakfast, at seven, and should have nothing till dinner, at five, if I missed this bell.”

“Well, he was in the same plight, but I might share with him.”