Moonchild

life which she expected to follow. But she could not know why the old mystic was at so great pains (as he afterwards proved) to make every syllable of his discourse intelligible; for she had not heard his conference with Cyril Grey at the moment when Sister Cybele had called her. "Brother Cyril!" the old mystic had said, "I shall go on — I shall even put more than the necessary care into the work — as if this were victory and not defeat. "I tell you that you will never do anything yourself, still less anything for others, so long as you rely on women. This victory of the woman's is only the chance resultant of a chaos of emotional states. She's in it for the fun of the thing; she's not even an artist; she's merely the female of the species; and I do not alleviate the situation by one further precision — your species!" "Are women no use? Why were they made?" asked Cyril, angry He did not know that his question was prompted by a desire yet unconquered in [102] himself. But Simon Iff answered him with mock humility. "I am unskilled to unravel the mysteries of the Universe. Like Sir Isaac Newton, I am —" But seeing the muffled rage in the boy's eyes, he spared him the conclusion. [103]