"I dunno," said Kurt, rising, "but I daresay there's a good deal to be said on the other side. I'm not so sure, though. I know lots of the other people, and they've never given me such an amusing evening. I haven't had such a good time since I came to London, where everybody thinks of nothing but having a good time. I'll come again. Anyhow, you're not worrying about what other folk are thinking of you, and that's the only thing I can't stand. Good night."
Kilner was too excited to go to bed, and he kept René up till three o'clock in the morning talking about a picture he was painting of God creating Eve out of Adam, who was to be shown in an attitude of surrender, though his body gave signs of a fearful agony. Yet was it Adam's will to submit to any torture to attain the knowledge of the almighty joy of creation.
René was curious about the woman's share in the operation, and was vaguely distressed to find that in Kilner's intention Eve was to be no more than beautiful.
"But is she to have no share in creation and the joy of it?"
Kilner was pacing round the room. He waved his fists in the air.
"Don't you see? Don't you see?" he shouted. "Don't you see that we have created her? Even if you drop the myth and take to evolution, don't you see that woman has been nothing but the creature, the instrument of reproduction? Don't you see that man fell in love with her, and with his love slowly humanized her, gave her intelligence, humor, charm?"
"Might it not be," said René, "that woman was first, and evolved man to do the work so that she might reserve more energy for conception? And again, there seems no reason for imagining that either came first. The difference in sex is a great deal more superficial than is generally supposed. It must be. It is aggravated by environment and habit, training and physical processes, but it is not a fundamental difference."
"You may be right. You sometimes are. But for the purpose of my picture Eve must be stupidly beautiful, just beauty and nothing else. If you like I'll paint another Adam and Eve when he has begun to love her, and through love has come to the desire of knowledge. But I'm afraid her eyes will still be stupid, and she will still think him rather a fool for desiring anything but her."