“That sort of thing happens only in novels,” she said. “But there is no reason I shouldn’t tell you my name, if you want to know it. It is Millicent Field, and its possessor is very undistinguished—just a school-teacher—not at all in the same social circle as the Courtlandt Bryces.”

Stewart colored a little.

“My name is Bradford Stewart,” he said, “and I also am very undistinguished—just a surgeon on the staff at Johns Hopkins. Did you get to Vienna?”

“No; that was too far for us.”

“There was a clinic there; I saw some wonderful things. These German surgeons certainly know their business.”

Miss Field made a little grimace.

“Perhaps,” she admitted. “But do you know the impression of Germany that I am taking home with me? It is that Germany is a country run solely in the interests of the male half of creation. Women [Pg 34]are tolerated only because they are necessary in the scheme of things.”

[Pg 34]

Stewart laughed.

“There was a book published a year or two ago,” he said, “called ‘Germany and the Germans.’ Perhaps you read it?”

“No.”

“I remember it for one remark. Its author says that Germany is the only country on earth where the men’s hands are better kept than the women’s.”

Miss Field clapped her hands in delight.

“Delicious!” she cried. “Splendid! And it is true,” she added, more seriously. “Did you see the women cleaning the streets in Munich?”

“Yes.”

“And harvesting the grain, and spreading manure, and carrying great burdens—doing all the dirty work and the heavy work. What are the men doing, I should like to know?”

“Madam,” spoke up the bearded stranger by the window, in a deep voice which made everybody jump, “I will tell you what the men are doing—they are in the army, preparing themselves for the defense of their fatherland. Do you think it is of choice they leave the harvesting and street-cleaning and carrying of burdens to their mothers and wives [Pg 35]and sisters? No; it is because for them is reserved a greater task—the task of 

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