“Indeed, I should,” she declared with spirit.  “You men are entirely too soft about women.  You don’t realize how strong they are.  And, of course, women don’t resist the temptation to use their sex when they see how easy it is to fool men that way.  The sad thing about it is that the woman who gets along by using her sex and by appealing to the soft-heartedness of men never learns to rely on herself.  She’s likely to come to grief sooner or later.”

“There’s truth in all that,” said Norman.  “Enough to make it dangerously unjust.  There’s so much lying done about getting on that it’s no wonder those who’ve never tried to do for themselves get a wholly false notion of the situation.  It is hard—­bitterly hard—­for a man to get on.  Most men don’t.  Most men?  All but a mere handful.  And if those who do get on were to tell the truth—­the whole truth—­about how they succeeded—­well, it’d not make a pleasant story.”

“But you’ve got on,” retorted the girl.

“So I have.  And how?” Norman smiled with humorous cynicism.  “I’ll never tell—­not all—­only the parts that sound well.  And those parts are the least important.  However, let’s not talk about that.  What I set out to say was that, while it’s hard for a man to make a decent living—­unless he has luck—­and harder still—­much harder—­for him to rise to independence——­”

“It wasn’t so dreadfully hard for you,” interrupted Josephine, looking at him with proud admiration.  “But then, you had a wonderful brain.”

“That wasn’t what did it,” replied he.  “And, in spite of all my advantages—­friendships, education, enough money to tide me over the beginnings—­in spite of all that, I had a frightful time.  Not the work.  Of course, I had to work, but I like that.  No, it was the—­the maneuvering, let’s call it—­the hardening process.”

“You!” she exclaimed.

“Everyone who succeeds—­in active life.  You don’t understand the system, dear.  It’s a cutthroat game.  It isn’t at all what the successful hypocrites describe in their talks to young men!” He laughed.  “If I had followed the ‘guides to success,’ I’d not be here.  Oh, yes, I’ve made terrible sacrifices, but—­” his look at her made her thrill with exaltation—­“it was worth doing. . . .  I understand and sympathize with those who scorn to succeed.  But I’m glad I happened not to be born with their temperament, at least not with enough of it to keep me down.”

“You’re too hard on yourself, too generous to the failures.”

“Oh, I don’t mean the men who were too lazy to do the work or too cowardly to dare the—­the unpleasant things.  And I’m not hard with myself—­only frank.  But we were talking of the women.  Poor things, what chance have they got?  You scorn them for using their sex.  Wait till you’re drowning, dear, before you criticise another for what he does to save himself when he’s sinking for the last time.  I used everything I had in making my fight.  If I could have got on better or quicker by the aid of my sex, I’d have used that.”