hither and thither, turning in spiral ascension, or even spinning round. Yes, I am proud that this Becoming still goes on. I prefer a hundred times the 'Transitional Woman' to the 'Woman of the Future': for she who is transitional promises ever so much more than the other, when perfect, can fulfil.
"Neither you," I said, turning to Gina, "with your quasi-Pantheistic theory of love; nor Madame Wildenhoff, with her volatile and almost man-like eroticism; nor Idalia, nor Martha—none of you is, any more than I am, a woman of the future; you are full of exaggerated theories, of crotchets, of false notions, of atavistic trends and extreme views. Yet I prefer you to that free and happy woman of our dreams, in whom desire, conscious and in perfect equilibrium, will not, however intense it may be, trespass beyond the limits of its possibility to be satisfied. Yes! You I prefer to the most perfect of standards, to the very best of patterns, to the wisest and most consistent of—Philistines!"
Gina said gloomily:
"Then what is it all for—this ghastly struggle, this agony of Becoming?"
"For the glory of the last specimens of our
