"Then you"ll give me back the papers?"
"I"m sorry."
"Sorry for taking them?"
"No, sorry for keeping them."
"You don"t mean to say that you are going to keep them, Miss Smith?"
"I"m afraid I must. My duty forces me to deliver them to Professor Challis."
"But why does this terrible and strapping young lady desire to swipe the draft of this bill?"
"Because it contains the evidence of a wicked conspiracy between the Governor of New York, the Mayor of this city, and an abandoned legislature. The women of America ought to know what threatens them before this bill is perfected and introduced. And before they will permit it to be debated and pa.s.sed they are determined to march on Albany, half a million strong, as did the heroines of Versailles!"
She stretched out her white gloved hand with an excited but graceful gesture; he eyed her moodily, swinging the chenille cat by its fluffy tail.
"What do they suspect is in that bill?" he said at last.
"We are not yet perfectly sure. We believe it is an insidious attempt to sow dissension in the ranks of our s.e.x--a bill cunningly devised to create jealousy and unworthy distrust among us--an ingenious and inhuman conspiracy to disorganize the National Federation of Free and Independent Women."
"Nonsense," he said. "The bill, when perfected, is designed to give you what you want."
"What!"
"Certainly; votes for women."
"On what terms?" she asked, incredulously.
"Terms? Oh, no particular terms. I wouldn"t call them "terms,"" he said craftily; "that sounds like masculine dictation."
"It certainly does."
"Of course. There are no terms in it. It"s a--a sort of a civil service idea--a kind of a qualification for the franchise----"
"Oh!"
"Yes," he continued pleasantly, "it a--er--suggests that a vote be accorded to any woman who, in compet.i.tion with others of that election district, pa.s.ses the examinations----"
"What examinations?"
He twirled the cat carelessly.
"Oh, the examination papers are on various subjects. One is chemistry."
"Chemistry?"
"Yes--that part of organic chemistry which includes the scientific preparation of--er--food."
Her eyes flashed; he twirled the cat absently.
"Yes," he said, "chemistry is one of the subjects. Physics is another--physical phenomena."
"What kind?"
"Oh, the--the proposition that nature abhors a vacuum. You"re to prove it--you"re given a certain area--say a bed-room full of dust. Then you apply to it----"
"I see," she said; "you mean we apply to it a vacuum cleaner, don"t you?"
"Or," he admitted courteously, "you may solve it through the science of dynamics----"
"Of course--using a broom." Her eyes were beautiful but frosty.
"Do you know," he said, as pleasantly as he dared, "that you, for instance, would be sure to pa.s.s."
"Because I"m intelligent enough to comprehend the subtleties of this--bill?"
"Exactly." He swung the cat in a circle.
"Thank you. And what else do these examination papers contain?"
"Physics mostly--the properties of solid bodies. For example, you choose a b.u.t.ton--any ordinary b.u.t.ton," he explained frankly, as though taking her into his confidence; "say, for instance, the plain bone b.u.t.ton of commerce----"
"And sew it onto some masculine shirt," she nodded as he sank back apparently overcome with admiration at her intelligence. "And that," she added, "no doubt is intended to ill.u.s.trate the phenomenon of adhesion."
"You are perfectly correct," he said with enthusiasm.
"What else is there?" she asked.
"Oh, nothing--nothing very much. A few experiments in bacteriology----"
"Sterilizing nursing bottles?"
"How on earth did you ever guess?" he cried, overwhelmed, but perfectly alert to the kindling anger in her blue eyes. "Why, of course that is it. It is included in the science of embryotics--"
"What science?"
"Embryotics. For instance, you take an embryo of any kind--say a--a baby. Then you show exactly how to dress, undress, wash, feed, and finally bring that baby to triumphant maturity. It"s interesting, isn"t it, Miss Smith?"
She said nothing. He twirled the cat furiously until its tail gave way and it flew into a corner.
"Captain Jones," she said, "as I understand it, this bill is a codified conspiracy to turn every woman of this State into a--a washer of clothes, a cleaner of floors, a bearer of children--and a Haus-frau!"
"I--I would not put it that way," he protested.
"And her reward," she went on, not noticing his interruption, "is permission to vote--to use the inalienable liberty with which already Heaven has endowed her."
Tears flashed in her eyes; she held her small head proudly and not one fell.
"Captain Jones," she said, "do you realize what centuries of suppression are doing to my s.e.x? Do you understand that woman is degenerating into an immobility--an inertia--a molluskular condition of receptive pa.s.sivity which is rendering us, year by year, more unfitted to either think or act for ourselves? Even in the matter of marriage we are not permitted by custom to a.s.sume the initiative. We may only shake our heads until the man we are inclined toward asks us, when he is entirely ready to ask. Then, like a row of Chinese dolls, we nod our heads. I tell you," she said, tremulously, "we are becoming like that horrid, degenerate, wingless moth which is born, mates, and dies in one spot--a living mechanical incubator--a poor, deformed, senseless thing that has through generations lost not only the use, but even the rudiments of the wings which she once possessed. But the male moth flies more strongly and frivolously than ever. There is nothing the matter with the development of his wings, Captain Jones."
[Ill.u.s.tration]
[Ill.u.s.tration]
XVI.
IT was now growing rather dark in the room.
"I"m terribly sorry you feel this way," he said.
She had averted her eyes and was now seated, chin in hand, looking out of the window.
"Do you know," he said, "this is a rotten condition of affairs."
"What do you mean?" she asked.
"This att.i.tude of women."
"Is it more odious than the att.i.tude of men?"
"After all," he said, "man is born with the biceps. He was made to do the fighting."
"Not all of the intellectual fighting."
"No, of course not. But--you don"t want him to rock the cradle, do you?"
"Cradles are no longer rocked, Captain Jones. I don"t think you would be qualified to pa.s.s this examination with which you menace us."
He began to be interested. She turned from the window, saw he was interested, hesitated, then: "I wish I could talk to you--to such a man as you seem to be--sensibly, without rancour, without personal enmity or prejudice----"
"Can"t you?"
"Why, yes. I can. But--I am not sure what your att.i.tude----"
"It is friendly," he said, looking at her. "I am perfectly hap--I mean willing to listen to you. Only, sooner or later, you must return to me those papers."
"Why?"
"The Governor entrusted them to me officially----"
She said smiling: "But you--your Governor I mean--can frame another similar bill."
"I"m a soldier in uniform," he said dramatically. "My duty is to guard those papers with my life!"
"I am a soldier, too," she said proudly, "in the Army of Human Progress."
"Very well," he said, "if you regard it that way."
"I do. Only brute violence can deprive me of these papers."
"That," he said, "is out of the question."
"It is no more shameful than the mental violence to which you have subjected us through centuries. Anyway, you"re not strong enough to get them from me."
"Do you expect me to seize you and twist your arm until you drop those papers?"
"You can never have them otherwise. Try it!"
He sat silent for a while, alternately twisting his moustache and the cat"s tail. Presently he flung the latter away, rose, inspected the stars on the wall, and then began to pace to and fro, his gloved hands behind his back, spurs and sword clanking.
"It"s getting late," he said as he pa.s.sed her. Continuing his promenade he added as he pa.s.sed her again. "I"ve had no luncheon. Have you?"
He poked around the room, examining the fantastic furnishings in all their magnificence of cotton velvet and red cheesecloth.
"If this is Dill"s room it"s a horrible place," he thought to himself, sitting down by a table and shuffling a pack of cards.
"Shall I cast your horoscope?" he asked amiably. "Here"s a chart."
"No, thank you."
Presently he said: "It"s getting beastly cold in this room."
"Really!" she murmured.
He came back and sat down in the gilded chair. It was now so dusky in the room that he couldn"t see her very plainly.
So he folded his arms and abandoned himself to gloomy patience until the room became very dark. Then he got up, struck a match, and lighted the gas.
"By Jupiter!" he muttered, "I"m hungry."
For nearly five minutes she let the remark go apparently unnoticed. But the complaint he had made is the one general and comprehensive appeal that no woman ever born can altogether ignore. In the depths of her something always responds, however faintly. And in the soul of this young girl it was answering now--the subtle, occult response of woman to the eternal and endless need of man--hunger of one kind or another.
"I"m sorry," she said, so sincerely that the sweetness in her voice startled him.
"Why--why, do you know I believe you really are!" he said in grateful surprise.
"I am a great many things that you have no idea I am," she said, smiling.
"What is one of them?"
"I"m afraid I"m a--a fool."