For what had Weiniger said, if the dull world would but take the wool out of its ears and listen? Why, what but that the classification by sexes was nothing but the roughest of approximations after all? Because the chromosome didn't actually _show_, illogical folk had got into the habit of saying "This is a man" and "That is a woman," largely by force of hearing it repeated time after time. But what of the masculine qualities in woman, the feminine qualities in man? What about Cosimo's exquisite perceptions, Amory's own strong art? Oh no; this rough guesswork really would not do for a generation that at last, in spite of bandages and blinkers, had begun to see the light! Amory knew--by herself and Cosimo, to go no further--that the sexes _did_ intermerge and graduate. The best women to-day had brains that pierced ruthlessly through shams (which was what brains were primarily for); and the best men were Feminist in their sympathies. No doubt it would take a little time for this truth to force its way into the Glenernes of the land. No doubt Mrs. Deschamps would continue to flirt with M. Criqui, and the unspeakable Mr. Wellcome to boast that he was wholly (not partly) the father of his own offspring and his placid wife entirely (and without qualification) their mother. But nobody on the look-out for signs of the true progress turned their eyes Glenernewards. Glenerne had never heard of the chromosome. Ten to one it would have thought it was a mechanical piano-player. That was why Amory had left Glenerne.
And how had the world treated its Weiniger--its Nietzsche--its Strindberg? "Mad as hatters," it said, merely because they had shot themselves, or died in the madhouses to which it had driven them!
Yes (Amory thought), if that was the best the men could do, it was time the women took hold!
Hungrily, hungrily she wished Cosimo was back, so that they might discuss these things together!
But Cosimo not only remained away; he did not even write very frequently. He appeared to wait until he had received three letters from Amory, and then to "answer" them together, obviously with the letters before him. Amory understood that business in connection with his uncle's estate detained him; he was in Shropshire: and a phrase about "running up to town presently" had read as if, even when he should come, he would go back to Shropshire again. But he had not given up his studio near the Vestry Hall; Amory knew that because he had sent her the key of it and had asked her to forward his letters; and Amory went there daily. Once she had even tried to work there, but without much success. She had hardly expected it would answer. She had only tried it because she had come to hate her own place so.