as ishbel had promised, it was but a family party at her house on the following evening, and after dinner, the men went to the billiard room, the women upstairs. julia was to stay overnight, and after she and ishbel had made themselves comfortable in negligées, they met in the boudoir for a talk. bridgit was striding up and down as they entered, her hands clasped behind her. as they dropped into easy chairs, she took up her stand before the fire-screen.
“julia,” she said fiercely, “you are going to fall in love with that man.”
“i am in love with him,” said julia, coolly, lighting a cigarette.
“good!” said ishbel. “it is high time.”
“high time!” cried mrs. maundrell. “you could fall in love and i could fall in love, and no damage done. we have married englishmen and gone straight ahead with our work. but not only is julia the leader of a great party which demands her undivided allegiance, but this man is an american.”
“perhaps he would live over here,” suggested ishbel, who was normally hopeful. “he is far more sympathetic with our cause than eric.”
“not he. he is more american than the americans—perhaps because he is a californian. he told me all about his fight for reform in san francisco—never heard anything so exciting—and he’s going to try it again after they’ve had another dose of corruption under the present mayor. besides, there’s going to be a big fight this year to put in a reform governor, and he means to take part in it. he’ll never desert. it will be julia?—”
“don’t excite yourself,” murmured julia. “i didn’t say i meant to marry him.”
“but why not?” asked ishbel. “we are sure to win this year, and then you will have done your great work. we should always need you, of course, but it will be mainly educational work for a long time, and the others can do that. it will be ages before women get into a cabinet or even into parliament. and—splendid idea—you could drill the american women, become the leader over there. with your experience and reputation you would be simply invaluable to them.”
“suppose we don’t win this year?” asked julia, languidly.
“we won’t!” said mrs. maundrell, emphatically. “they’re merely hedging. there’s nothing for us but to fight the liberals at every general election until we get the conservatives in.”
“i don’t believe it,” said ishbel, who, like many of the women, was certain of victory in that year of 1910 which was to bring their “black friday.” “the government may hate us, but they have given ample proof that they fear us; they know it is time to make friends of us. they will consent to the enfranchisement of only a limited number, of course, but i wouldn’t care if they only enfranchised the wives of cabinet ministers. let them make the fatal admission that woman has a political and legal existence and the rest is only a matter of time.”
“yes, and nobody knows that better than themselves. they may be brutes, but they are not fools. i don’t hope for it—perhaps not even from the conservatives—until fully four-fifths of the wives of this country have risen and devilled the lives out of their husbands. and the average british female is about as easy to wake up as a stuffed hippopotamus. she merely protrudes her front teeth and says, ‘how very odd!’ no, julia can’t leave us. fatal gift, that of leadership. must take the consequences, old girl.”
“who said i wouldn’t? women have fallen in love without marrying before this. i intend to remain in love for a fortnight longer. then i shall forget it and return to work.”
“yes, if you can. i fought, fought like the devil. didn’t i confide in you? didn’t i look like the last rose? you are strong, but so am i. let me tell you that love is a disease?—”
“quite so. there you have it. love is a disease—of the subconscious or instinctive mind. it is a profound auto-suggestion, induced, in the region where the primal instincts dwell, by the superior suggestive power of some one else, and can be treated mentally like any disease of the body.”
bridgit flung herself on the floor and clasped her knees. “how diabolically interesting! tell us how you do it.”
ishbel smiled and lit another cigarette.
“i may not be able to do it myself. love, like sleep, the circulation of the blood, the digestive apparatus, to say nothing of drug and drink habits, is controlled by the subconscious mind. we can unwittingly give ourselves suggestions, but not deliberately. but all mental diseases, short of insanity, can be cured by counter-suggestions, administered by an expert. if i found that my will was helpless before intermittent attacks of love fever, and all that horrible accompaniment of longing and aching we read about, to say nothing of confusion of mind which unfits one for work, i should go to paris and put myself in the hands of an eminent psychotherapeutist i know of. he would throw me into a semicataleptic state, or hypnotic, if i were not amenable in the other, and give me counter-suggestions until i was as completely cured as if i merely had had an attack of insomnia, or had taken a drug until it had weakened my will.”
“how beautifully simple! why didn’t you tell me when i was in the throes, and doubtful of its being for the best?”
“i didn’t think of it. it only occurred to me when i was beginning to feel—perplexed. now, as i really need a rest, and can take it in this interval of peace, i am going to see what the preliminary surrenders are like, and enjoy them. that much i owe to myself. and i shall not have its memory destroyed, neither.”
“no, don’t,” said ishbel. “merely have it put in cold storage. suspended animation. you might be able to marry mr. tay, after all. it would be a pity to lose it altogether. should you have to fall in love all over again, or should you go back to your psychowhatyoucallhim and have the original suggestions replanted? will he keep them in alcohol in a glass jar like those things in the sorbonne?”
“you can jest, my dear, but i am talking pure science. and i learned it at the fountainhead. the anglo-saxon world is slow to accept anything it thinks new, but suggestive therapeutics were practised two thousand years b.c.”
“no one could be less conservative than i, although i have an adorable husband and two babies. some day that may be thought radical. my mind is hospitable to all your lore, but i want to hear you work it out to its logical conclusion. what shall you do if you suddenly find yourself free to marry mr. tay—delightful man!—before he, with or without the aid of psychos, has recovered from you?”
“i have other reasons for intending to marry no man. and as for dan—he is not even sure he is in love with me?—”
“oh, isn’t he?” cried bridgit and ishbel in chorus.
“well, granted he is; he was not when he came over. he was convinced that i had grown hard and masculine, altogether terrifying; he was quite over his boyish infatuation. now, he is attracted because he is delighted to find me not so much changed outwardly from his old ideal, and much more interesting to talk to. besides, his masculinity is alert at the prospect of a difficult hunt. but when he is once more on the other side of the world, he will recover.”
“julia,” said ishbel, “you haven’t studied that man’s jaw-bones. and he has had his own way too much. he is tenacious. now, as you are a human woman, you will adopt my suggestion. you will take him with you to paris, and persuade him to go in for alternate treatments. sauce for the goose, etc.”
“no,” said julia, frowning.
“julia!” said ishbel, severely. “are you losing your sense of humor?”
“of course not!” julia sprang to her feet. “but, you see, all this is a b c to me; and as it’s merely funny to you, you think there must be an air pocket in my mind into which my sense of humor has dropped?—”
“no, dear, not a bit of it. we all know that you learned more in the east than you’ll ever tell, and we’ve heard vague rumors of charcot?—”
“oh, his hypnotism is all out of date. the present men are as scientific as the ancients?—”
“well, don’t be too hard on us, julia, and pity mr. tay. take him with you to paris. i mean it. it’s the least you can do.”
“i’ll not.”
“and why not, dear?”
“oh, you see,” said julia, “the unexpected might happen, and i might want to marry him. and when men recover, they recover so completely; not to say console themselves with some one else. i shall have the suggestion made, that if i ever should—but i’m not going to say another word about it. good night.” and she ran out of the room.
“i don’t doubt she could do all that,” said ishbel, as bridgit gathered herself up. “but one thing i am positive of, and that is that she won’t.”
“i rather hope she will. then we can have a private conference with the psycho and tell him to plant the haunting image of nigel in the place of tay, dispossessed. then we’ll all be happy.”
“do you believe nigel cares still for julia?”
“don’t i? but he’s strong, if you like. he can’t marry her in england, so he thinks of her as little as possible and does the work of two men.”
“but if he can’t marry her?”
“i’ll tell you something if you’ll vow not to tell julia—or mr. tay.”
“very well.”
“france has been having bad heart attacks. i have it from aunt peg.”
“julia is as likely to hear it from the same source.”
“not she. the duke has forgiven her, but has no desire to be reminded that he has a suffragette in the family. never reads the militant news, and all the rest of it. so julia spares his feelings and never goes there. (i spare him the sight of me!) i don’t want her to know it until mr. tay is safely at home in his absorbing san francisco. it would never do, ishbel. i’d like to see julia happy myself, but she can’t leave england. and she’d be happier with nigel, for he’s her own sort. i like mr. tay; he’s really frightfully attractive—but—after part i of love-plus-matrimony had run its course, they’d have a bad time adapting themselves. the real tyrants are the masterful americans, because in their heart of hearts they regard women as children, handle them subtly, won’t fight in the open. now remember, you’ve promised. if mr. tay found out that france was likely to die any minute, he’d ‘camp’ here, as he expresses it, until he could marry julia out of hand. he has a jaw, as you’ve observed yourself.”
“yes,” said ishbel. “i’ve promised, but i rather wish i hadn’t. i like fair play.”
“we are in war,” said mrs. maundrell, coolly. “good night.”
