.

.
" "Do you expect me to agree to all this ?" I interrupted.
"No, it isn't necessary," said Marlow, feeling the check to his eloquence but with a great effort at amiability.

"You need not even understand it.
I continue: with such disposition what prevents women--to use the phrase an old boatswain of my acquaintance applied descriptively to his captain--what prevents them from "coming on deck and playing hell with the ship" generally, is that something in them precise and mysterious, acting both as restraint and as inspiration; their femininity in short which they think they can get rid of by trying hard, but can't, and never will.

Therefore we may conclude that, for all their enterprises, the world is and remains safe enough.

Feeling, in my character of a lover of peace, soothed by that conclusion I prepared myself to enjoy a fine day.
And it was a fine day; a delicious day, with the horror of the Infinite veiled by the splendid tent of blue; a day innocently bright like a child with a washed face, fresh like an innocent young girl, suave in welcoming one's respects like--like a Roman prelate.