Mademoiselle Bjornsen, substitute delegate for one of the Scandinavian countries, a doctor of medicine, and a woman of high purpose and degree, of the type which used to be called, in the old days when it flourished in Great Britain, feminist, often walked out in the evening for a purpose which did her great credit. She was of those good and disinterested women who care greatly for the troubles of their less fortunate, less well-educated and less well-principled sisters, and who often patrol streets in whatever city they happen to find themselves, with a view to extending the hand of succour to those of their sex who appear to be in error or in need.

On this evening of the 8th of September, Mlle. Bjornsen was starting out, after her dinner at the HÔtel Richemond, on her nightly patrol, when she was joined by Mlle. Binesco from Roumania, a lady whose rich and exuberant personality was not, perhaps, wholly in accord with her own more austere temperament, but whom she acknowledged to abound in good intentions and sisterly pity for the unfortunate of her sex. For her part, Mlle. Binesco did not regard Mlle. Bjornsen as a very womanly woman, but respected her integrity and business-like methods, and felt her to be, perhaps, an effective foil to herself. It may be observed that there are in this world mental females, mental males, and mental neutrals. You may know them by their conversation. The mental females, or womanly women, are apt to talk about clothes, children, domestics, the prices of household commodities, love affairs, or personal gossip. Theirs is rather a difficult type of conversation to join in, as it is above one's head. Mental males, or manly men, talk about sport, finance, business, animals, crops, or how things are made. Theirs is also a difficult type of conversation to join in, being also above one's head. Male men as a rule, like female women, and vice versa; they do not converse, but each supplies the other with something they lack, so they gravitate together and make happy marriages. In between these is the No-Man's Land, filled with mental neutrals of both sexes. They talk about all the other things, such as books, jokes, politics, love (as distinct from love affairs), people, places, religion (in which, though they talk more about it, they do not, as a rule, believe so unquestioningly as do the males and the females, who have never thought about it and are rather shocked if it is mentioned), plays, music, current fads and scandals, public persons and events, newspapers, life, and anything else which turns up. Their conversation is easy to join in, as it is not above one's head. They gravitate together, and often marry each other, and are very happy. If one of them makes a mistake and marries a mental male or a mental female, the marriage is not happy, for they demand conversation and interest in things in general, and are answered only by sex; they tell what they think is a funny story, and meet the absent eye and mechanical smile of one who is thinking how to turn a heel or a wheel, how to sew a frock or a field, how most cheaply to buy shoes or shares. And they themselves are thought tiresome, queer, unsympathetic, unwomanly or unmanly, by the more fully sexed partner they have been betrayed by love's blindness into taking unto themselves.

This is one of life's more frequent tragedies, but had not affected either Mlle. Binesco, who was womanly, and had always married (so to speak) manly men, or Mlle. Bjornsen, who was neutral, and had not married any one, having been much too busy.

Anyhow, these two ladies were at one in their quest to-night. Both, whatever their minds might be like, had warm feminine hearts. Geneva, that godly Calvinist city, was a poor hunting-ground on the whole for them. But they turned their steps to the old citÉ, rightly believing that among those ancient and narrow streets vice might, if anywhere, flit by night.

“These wicked traffickers in human flesh and blood,” observed Mlle. Binesco sighing (for she was rather stout), as they ascended the Rue de la CitÉ; “do not tell me they are not somehow behind the mysterious assaults on our unhappy comrades of the League. Never tell me so, for I will not believe it.”

“I will not tell you so,” Mlle. Bjornsen, an accurate person, replied, “for I know nothing at all about it, nor does any one else. But to me it seems improbable, I sometimes think, mademoiselle, that there is some danger that the preoccupation which women like ourselves naturally feel with the suppression of this cruel trade and the rescue of its victims, may at times lead us into obsession or exaggeration. I try to guard myself against that. Moderation and exactitude are important.”

“Ah, there speaks the north. For me, mademoiselle, I cannot be moderate; it is a quality alien to my perhaps over-impetuous temperament. I have never been cautious—neither in love, hate, nor in the taking of risks. You will realise, Mademoiselle, that the risk you and I are taking to-night is considerable. Have we not been warned not to penetrate into the more squalid parts of the city by night? And we are not only delegates, but women. At any moment we might be attacked and carried off to some dwelling of infamy, there to wait deportation to another land.”

“I do not expect it,” replied the Scandinavian lady, who had a sense of humour.

A shrill giggle broke on their ears from a side street. Glancing down it, they saw a young girl, wearing like flags the paint and manner of her profession, and uttering at intervals its peculiar cry—that shrill, harsh laugh which had drawn the ladies' attention.

“Ah!” a coo of satisfaction came from Mlle. Binesco. “VoilÀ une pauvre petite!”

As the girl saw them, she darted away from them down the alley, obviously suspicious of their intentions. Quickly they followed; here, obviously, was a case for assistance and rescue.

The kind mouth of Mlle. Bjornsen set in determination; her intelligent eyes beamed behind their glasses.

The girl fluttered in front of them, still uttering the peculiar cry of her species, which to the good ladies was a desperate appeal for help, till she suddenly bolted beneath a low, dark archway.

The ladies hesitated. Then, “I must follow her, poor girl,” Mlle. Bjornsen remarked simply, for the courage of a thousand Scandinavian heroes beat in her blood.

“And where you adventure, my dear friend,” cried Mlle. Binesco, “I, a Roumanian woman and a friend of kings, will not be behind! We advance, then, in the name of humanity and of our unhappy sex!”

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