"You shock me," declared the American, "by what you tell me about children not being wanted. I don't agree with you there. Of course, that is sometimes the case in irregular relations, but I think too well of humanity to believe that, by married parents of any means at all, children are not wanted after they get here."

"None?"

Both men turned: it was Muriel that had spoken. Her face grew scarlet under their look.

The doctor's glance was keen.

"I am of madame's mind," said he, quietly.

Stainton strove to pa.s.s the embarra.s.sing interruption.

"Well, doctor," he said, and from the corner of his eye saw with satisfaction that Muriel busied herself with an intricate ice, "I stick to my belief in humanity."

Boussingault flourished his coffee cup and spilled a liberal portion of its contents.

"In what world do you live?" he asked.

"In an eminently sane one," said Stainton.

"_Bien_; I knew it was not the real world. In your world you know nothing, then, of all the ways, direct and indirect, to make women bear babies they do not want; in it you know nothing of the child unloved and scarcely endured; in it you know nothing of the boy or girl for these reasons, or because the mother hated the price of marriage, afflicted with morbid nerves and will-atrophy. Those who would improve the race must know of these things, but they consider them not. They consider not that there is the motherly-physical inclination combined with physical ability; that degrees of inclination and ability vary. They make one law for all that, by physique only, appear fit. Good, then: the person the best fitted for their plan is she who will not let them send her to the altar as if she had no proper will. Again, suppose you forbid the 'unfit' to marry? You straightway increase not only the number of illegitimate children, but of illegitimate unfit children, for the illegitimate child, in our mad world, has not the whole of a chance. M.

Stainton, your savants would raise the race by oppressing the individuals."

Stainton's anxiety was now to end the meal. He felt that matters had gone far enough, and he feared that the topic of discussion had proved a morbid one for a prospective mother. He murmured something about the survival of the fittest.

"The survival of the fittest," roared Boussingault. "My good friend, who is it that is fitted to survive? He who can? The brute? You say"--he had quite placed poor Stainton in the opposition by this time--"you say that you would rather have for parent a robust burglar than a tubercular bishop. Me, Boussingault, I choose the bishop, for it is better to have ill health with money to hire Boussingaults than good health without money to buy food. 'Defectives'! Holy blue! The prize-fighter in New York who murders the little girl is of splendid physique and gives extraordinary care to his body. He is scrupulously clean. He does not smoke, does not even drink red wine. Of the sixteen children of his parents only seven prove, by survival, fitness to survive. He is of them--and he murders the little girl."

"Well," said Stainton, smiling, "perhaps sixteen is _too_ many."

"Tell me why," said the Frenchman. "Our great Ma.s.senet is of a family of children"--he swung his arm and dropped his emptied cup--"countless--absolutely countless. Environment, that is what you forget; environment, and inclination and _suitable_ physique. What to do? You should change the economic conditions that breed your 'defectives' as a refuse-heap breeds flies, but instead you propose to spend time and money to try to 'segregate' defectives as fast as you manufacture them. 'Segregate' and 'sterilize'? I have yet to hear of one of you sterilising a degenerate child of your own. You produce them not? Often. And you produce the good? Francis Galton left no child at all. I, Boussingault, say to you: breed a Florence Nightingale and an Isaac Newton and bring them up in a city slum and set them to work in a city factory, and their very good breeding will be society's loss.

Truly. What you will have will not be a philanthropist and a scientist, but only a more than commonly seductive _fille_ and a more than commonly clever thief. You cannot breed a free race until you have given to the possible mothers of it freedom of choice; and you cannot breed a healthy race until you have given to papa and mamma and baby proper food and surroundings--until you have given the man working the full pay for his toil."

He leaned back in his chair, held his handkerchief before his mouth without concealing it, and began to pick his teeth.

Muriel rose; she was pale. The two men started also to rise.

"Please don't," said Muriel. "I shall be back in a moment."

"Dearest----" began Stainton.

Muriel's answer was one look. She hurried from the room.

"My wife," said Stainton, resuming his seat, "is not very well."

"You desolate me," replied the physician as he grunted his way back into his chair. "But now that madame absents herself for a moment, let me be explicit."

"Explicit?" said Stainton. "I should have thought--Why, you have been talking as if the very construction of society were a crime!"

"Ah," said Boussingault, delightedly, "then you perceive just my point.

That is it; you put it well: modern society is The Great Crime--life is The Great Sin--what we have made of Life. Disease, Ignorance, Poverty, Wage-slavery, Child-slavery, l.u.s.t-slavery, Marriage-slavery! Marriage does not produce good children more than bad. Some of the highest types of humanity have been produced by the left hand. You ignore the positive side of selective breeding. If you can decide what const.i.tutes a 'fit'

man, how can you limit his racial gifts to the child-bearing capacities of one woman? And the woman, her, too; you must provide for selective futile polygamy and polyandry. You must be presented to the unmarried mother----"

"Really----" began Stainton.

"There is something in these your theories," interposed Boussingault, rushing to his conclusion, "but here you go too far and there half-way.

In Germany, until German bureaucracy captures them, they are the great aids to the revolt of Womankind, your theories. Educate for parenthood, endow mothers, pension during pregnancy and nursing--what then? Name of G.o.d! You have more to do than that, my friend--_we_ have more to do: we have to give every child born an equal chance, every man how much he earns; we must build a society where no superst.i.tion, no economic strain, no selfish 'usband keeps childless the woman that wants to be and ought to be a mother in marriage or outside; and we must recognise of all other women their inalienable right to refuse motherhood!"

Stainton rose quickly.

"Here comes my wife," he said. "I am afraid we shall have to hurry away, doctor."

XII

MONTMARTRE

Alone in their _taxi-metre_, Stainton and Muriel preserved for some time an awkward silence. Jim was waiting for some hint from her to indicate what would be his safest course. His wife sat rigid, her fists clenched in her lap.

"That doctor is a strange type," said Stainton at last.

"Horrid man! He's a _horrid_ man!" gasped Muriel.

"Well, of course," said Stainton, seeking to steer her into the quiescence of a judicial att.i.tude, "he is all wrong in his conclusions----"

"He picked his teeth," said Muriel.

Jim had preserved his own good manners to the age of fifty, but his years in mining-camps had blunted his observation of the lack of nicety in others.

"Did he?" asked Jim.

"Didn't you _see_ him? He carries a gold toothpick around with him. I believe he was proud of it. It's--that's what made me sick."

"Then," enquired Jim, growing uncomfortable, "it wasn't what he said?"

"Said? You both sat up there and quarrelled----"

"We didn't quarrel. The doctor has what seems to be the national manner, but we were merely discussing----"

"You were discussing me!" said Muriel. "I thought I should die. I don't know how I bore it; I----"

Jim slipped his arm around her waist. "My dear, my dear, how could you think such a thing? We were talking about a general subject. We were----Why, we didn't say anything that could possibly affect you."

"I don't care," Muriel declared: "everything that _he said_--that man--was awful."

"It was," admitted Stainton, glad that the burden of offence had again been shifted to Boussingault's shoulders. "It was, rather. I didn't know whether you were paying attention to it at all. To some of it I hoped you weren't."

"n.o.body could help hearing such shouting. I was so afraid there might be some English or Americans there."