if a man and a woman tentatively interested in each other would part for years at the end of a long day together, during which they had talked until every subject on earth seemed exhausted, and ennui inevitable, the cure would be effected before the disease had declared itself. an appreciative thought now and again, a passing regret, other minds as stimulating, the episode is closed. astute wives have been known to apply a form of this treatment to husbands and the objects of their roving fancy; perchance in time it will be recognized as a sort of love vaccine and scientifically administered.
julia and tay talked almost uninterruptedly until eleven o’clock that night, and existed comfortably apart for nearly a week. julia plunged into routine work with renewed ardors, refused to look at her tea-gowns, and when she thought of tay at all was rather glad they had met at last and had a jolly talk. tay sent her a box of roses (automatically), but was too busy to think about her; for the increased importance of his house, to say nothing of his reluctant millions, depended upon the success of his efforts in london. but on saturday he found himself idle, and promptly thought of julia. a brief talk on the telephone ended in an invitation to dine at clement’s inn that night; and with his desire for feminine society once more alert, and for julia’s in particular, he appeared with his usual promptness.
julia, who had grown methodical, had put on the green tea-gown as a logical result of its purchase for the delectation of her old friend; and he gave it instant approval.
“by jove!” he exclaimed. “that’s the sort of thing you were made for. you look less of a suffragette than ever. i hope that when you have accomplished your horrible purpose and have nothing to do but vote, you will receive me in a boudoir the same shade.”
“i shouldn’t wonder if i did have a boudoir one of these days— you look rather nice yourself in your evening clothes— that would be a good idea for all of us. we’ll take a rest cure first, and then feminize ourselves just enough.”
“rather flat, though, to receive women in boudoirs, for no men will go to see you—them.”
“oh, won’t they? men will readjust their old ideals when they have to, and be glad of something new in women.”
“yes, but that sort won’t care a hang about boudoirs.”
“they will about mine. and i’ll promise it shall be large enough for people with long legs. i hope the waiters won’t stumble over yours when they bring in the dinner.”
tay had had some misgivings about this dinner, having been asked to speak once or twice before women’s clubs, foregathered at the luncheon hour. but julia had not lost her taste for dainty edibles, and he hardly could have fared better anywhere, save in the city of his birth.
“how is it you know so much about food?” he asked as the dishes were being removed. “you say the suffragettes are not even masculine, they are sexless. no wonder they could stand gaol. no doubt they live on ancestral memories.”
“gaol has ruined most of their stomachs, all the same, and i should have choked over every morsel i ate, if i hadn’t deliberately thought about something else—detached my mind.”
“can you do that?” he asked, looking at her curiously.
“rather. i learned a good many secrets in the east. i can control both my mental and physical machinery.”
“how appalling! if you found yourself falling in love, i suppose you’d just turn on your mental hose-pipe and wash it out by the roots.”
“something like that.”
“julia,” said tay, removing his cigar and looking at the ash, “what would you really do if you ever did fall in love?”
“i never shall.”
“ah? is prophecy included in the mental make-up of the new sex?”
“i mean i’ll never have time.”
“but you’ll win this fight, and then, mercifully, have time to think of other things. there are a few things besides suffrage in the world even now, you know.”
“we won’t have so much more time; perhaps less. our work will only just have begun.”
“yes, but the holy martyr’s fire will have burned out for want of something to feed on. your interests will be more diverse, at least, your minds less concentrated. men have time to fall in love, you may have observed. you’ll all begin to look about.”
“i doubt it. we’ve been through too much ever to be quite like other women.”
“nonsense, julia, nonsense. you can’t get ahead of nature. she may take a back seat for a time, but she, being really unhuman, never sleeps. she watches her chance and the moment it comes she gets her fine work in. she hits good and hard, too; all the harder because she appropriates to herself some of the vengeance of the lord.”
“that’s a man’s reasoning, but it is beside the question as far as i am concerned. insane people live forever.”
“have you any prejudice against divorce?”
“rather not. one of the first things we accomplish is a reform of the unjust divorce laws of this country. but i doubt if even women will consent to the divorce of the insane. it can be done in only one or two states of your own country.”
“true. but a marriage can be annulled if it is shown that one of the parties to the contract was insane at the time of marriage.”
“marriage can be annulled on the same ground here, but not without more horrors of detail than any woman who had lived with a man for eight years would care to suffer.”
“a simple statement would be enough in reno—why do you laugh?”
“i have heard of reno before.”
“ah?” tay sat up alertly. “who else—who has wanted to take you out to reno and marry you?”
“oh, that is over long since. he remains a dear friend, my one intimate man friend—except you, of course—but we never meet any more except by accident. he has great responsibilities and is a good deal older now. it has become quite impracticable. neither of us would desert england.”
“did you ever love this man?”
“not enough.”
“what is he like?”
“oh, the best type of englishman, and more, for he has genius, and uses it in the interest of the race.”
“sounds like an infernal prig.”
“he is not!”
“oh! is he good-looking?”
“rather!”
“do women like him?”
“it shows how really remarkable he is, that he has never been spoiled by them.”
“are you trying to make me jealous?”
“of course i am not! i hope i have pulled all my pettiness up by the roots—long ago!”
“you are one of the purest types of female i have ever met. if you weren’t, you wouldn’t radiate charm from every electrical hair on your head.” he had been trying to stride about the little room. he stopped short and leaned both hands on the table. “julia,” he said, “do you want to know exactly what i think of you?”
“what could be more interesting?”
“i think you are a magnificent bluffer. no, don’t flash those arc-lights on me. i mean you bluff yourself, not the world. you are sincere, all right. but you’ve hypnotized yourself. ask your old mohammedan if i’m not right. he gave you a suggestion or two, from all accounts.”
“if you were not talking nonsense, i should be angry. i’m quite well aware that i was deliberately prepared for all this, and long before i went to india. wait until you meet bridgit; she’ll tell you her part in it. and even if i were hypnotized? are not we all more or less? hypnotized by the currents of life, by its waves beating on our brains? some are drawn to one current, some to another. it all depends upon our particular gift for usefulness. this happens to be my métier. sooner or later, whether i had gone to india or not, even if i had not known bridgit, even if—a friend had not written the book that started us all in this direction, i should have drifted into my current. only i had the good fortune to be steered soon instead of late.”
“not bad reasoning.” tay stared at her for a moment, then took up his restricted march. “all the same there are layers and layers that you have deliberately covered up. pretended they are not there. that is what i mean by bluffing.”
“oh, you don’t understand us. wait until you have met twenty or thirty more.”
“yes, wait! i don’t propose to know even one more. and i don’t care a continental for the whole militant bunch. not even rolled into one magnificent manifestation of sexless sex. i am quite willing to believe they were born that way, and have no desire to dwell on the thought. you are a different proposition.”
“not at all.”
“exactly. when a woman is made soft and beautiful and dainty, she’s made for man, don’t you make any mistake about that. nature is no fool. she hasn’t so much of that sort of material that she can afford to waste it. the number of undesirable women in the world is simply appalling. mind you—” as julia nearly overturned the table in her wrath, “i don’t argue that she’s made for that and nothing else. no man has less use for the pretty fool. nor have i a word to say against this cause you are exercising your talents on. go ahead and win. it’s a great cause, and deserves a good deal of sacrifice from great women. but for god’s sake don’t go on making a fool of yourself. the real you is under all that manufactured impersonal edifice, and sooner or later, it’ll wake up and knock the impersonal edifice into a cocked hat.”
“never!” julia sat down again.
tay took his own chair and leaned across the table.
“julia,” he said. “i have heard you speak once. i have read a good many of your more serious speeches. i have had a great many letters from you, all—except those in which you seemed to find some relief in your eastern experiences—on this one subject. you have given a good deal more than concentration of mind to this cause. you have given it an amount of white-hot passion that not one woman in a million possesses. what are you going to do with that when the cause is won?”
“you are describing all the women—”
“damn the other women. do me the favor to leave them out of the conversation. i don’t happen to be a fool, and if i haven’t managed to fall in love all these years, that doesn’t mean i know nothing about women. there is a certain quality of mental passion that springs from sex only. now you’ve got it, and you’ve got to reckon with it. when do you expect to win this fight?”
“this year. we are almost sure now that the government is ready to yield, but doesn’t wish to appear coerced. that is the reason we shall declare a truce.”
“ah? it may be longer than you think. but not so very long. and when that is off your chest, i’m going to marry you.”
“you? you’re not a bit in love with me.”
“i’m not so sure. i came over determined not to be, for although i like strong women, i don’t like ’em too strong. but your personal quality is stronger still—magnetism?—call it what you like?—”
“oh, if that is all, you’ll soon get over it. remember you are going back to america in a month?—”
“perhaps. that, however, has nothing to do with it. you knocked me out at fifteen, and you’re about to do it again. what have i waited for all these years? i’ve felt superstitious about it before?—”
“i don’t love you the least bit, and never could.” and julia made her eyes look pure steel.
“oh, couldn’t you? julia—” he leaned farther across the table and looked into the steel with no appreciable tremor. “julia, play the part you look for just three minutes and a quarter.”
“do you want me to kiss you?” asked julia, furiously.
“don’t i? i want nothing so much on earth, not even to get the best of those four-flushers in the city.”
“do you suppose i’d kiss a man unless i intended to marry him?”
“i hope not. i’m quite ready to do the right thing by you.”
“oh, i wish you would stop joking. it’s rather indecent, anyhow.”
“not a bit of it. and what do you suppose i’ve come into your life for? to take up your education where mrs. maundrell and your orientals left off. i’m part of the course. i’m inevitable. and if i’ve surrendered, why shouldn’t you?”
“surrender? i repeat that you are not a bit in love with me.”
“and i repeat that i am not so sure. after we parted the other day, i was comfortably certain there was nothing in it for me, that i was as safe as a cat up a tree. but these last two days—well, i began to be uneasy. i wouldn’t look it squarely in the face, but i was haunted with the idea of something wanting. i was uncomfortable away from you, that is the long and the short of it.”
“you merely wanted some one sympathetic to talk to. i shall introduce you to all my old friends.”
“delighted to meet them. or—shall i chuck business and take the next steamer?”
he was pale now and staring hard at her, perplexity and some astonishment deepening in his eyes.
“good idea,” said julia, coolly.
“you provocative little— were you ever a coquette?”
“of course not.”
“i wish i had been ten years older fifteen years ago. however—” he threw himself back in his chair. “i’ll not cut and run. i’ll be hanged if i do know whether i love you or not. you’ve a physical essence that goes to the head, but you are too self-centred, too unified, to give the complete happiness we men dream of. fifteen years ago!”
“do you mean i’m too old?”
“in a way, yes. you have lived too much in these fifteen years, although in one sense you haven’t lived at all. but you have the strength of ten women, and a man would have to be a good deal weaker than i am to want that much counterpoise. and yet you pull me like the devil, and i have admired you more these fifteen years than any woman on earth?—”
“really, you mustn’t disturb yourself,” said julia, who was now so angry that she looked merely satirical. “i should not marry—neither you nor any one—if my husband were dead and the cause won. winning the vote for women is merely a necessary preliminary, and my work for them but a part of an ideal of development i conceived even before i went to the east. i have a theory that the world will not improve much until a few women achieve a state of moral and mental perfection far ahead of anything the race has yet known. such an achievement is impossible to man because he is either oversexed, or the reverse, and in both cases incapable of achieving perfect unity in himself, and absolute strength. but to woman it is possible. there will only be a few of us. man needn’t worry. the world will always be full of the other kind. but to stand alone! to feel yourself equipped to accomplish for the world what twenty centuries of men have failed in—despite even their honest endeavor—do you fancy that one of us would exchange that great work for what any mere mortal could give us?”
“whew!” tay’s eyes, that had looked as hard as her own, flashed and smiled as he sprang to his feet and put on his overcoat. he held out his hand.
“let’s cut all this out for a time,” he said. “perhaps you’ve put me off, and perhaps you haven’t. perhaps you are right. but if you are not, well, out to reno you go. is it to-morrow you take me to call on your aunt?”
“yes. will you come here?”
“i will. goodnight.”
after he had gone julia for an hour stared straight at the wall as if deciphering hieroglyphics. then she smiled and went to bed.
