and becameless desirable as her brain began to work

"Oh yes," he said. "That is, I want to write them."She would not take her large grey eyes off his face. 　　"Novels," she repeated. "Why do you write novels? You oughtto write music. Music, you see"--she shifted her eyes, and becameless desirable as her brain began to work, inflicting a certainchange upon her face--"music goes straight for things. It saysall there is to say at once. With writing it seems to me there'sso much"--she paused for an expression, and rubbed her fingersin the earth--"scratching on the matchbox. Most of the time when Iwas reading Gibbon this afternoon I was horribly, oh infernally,damnably bored!" She gave a shake of laughter, looking at Hewet,who laughed too. 　　"_I_ shan't lend you books," he remarked. 　　"Why is it," Rachel continued, "that I can laugh at Mr. Hirstto you, but not to his face? At tea I was completely overwhelmed,not by his ugliness--by his mind." She enclosed a circle in the airwith her hands. She realised with a great sense of comfort whoeasily she could talk to Hewet, those thorns or ragged cornerswhich tear the surface of some relationships being smoothed away. 　　"So I observed," said Hewet. "That's a thing that never ceasesto amaze me." He had recovered his composure to such an extentthat he could light and smoke a cigarette, and feeling her ease,became happy and easy himself. 　　"The respect that women, even well-educated, very able women,have for men," he went on. "I believe we must have the sort of powerover you that we're said to have over horses. They see us three timesas big as we are or they'd never obey us. For that very reason,I'm inclined to doubt that you'll ever do anything even when youhave the vote." He looked at her reflectively. She appeared verysmooth and sensitive and young. "It'll take at least six generationsbefore you're sufficiently thick-skinned to go into law courtsand business offices. Consider what a bully the ordinary man is,"he continued, "the ordinary hard-working, rather ambitious solicitoror man of business with a family to bring up and a certain positionto maintain. And then, of course, the daughters have to give wayto the sons; the sons have to be educated; they have to bully andshove for their wives and families, and so it all comes over again.