The Complete Writings of Charles Dudley Warner Part 198

"Not if judge and jury were women," Miss McDonald interposed.

"And you remember Portia?" Mrs. Mavick continued.

"Portia," said Evelyn; "yes, but that is poetry; and, McDonald, wasn't it a kind of catch? How beautifully she talked about mercy, but she turned the sharp edge of it towards the Jew. I didn't like that."

"Yes," Miss McDonald replied, "it was a kind of trick, a poet's law.

What do you say, Mr. Burnett?"

"Why," said Philip, hesitating, "usually it is understood when a man buys or wins anything that the appurtenances necessary to give him full possession go with it. Only in this case another law against the Jew was understood. It was very clever, nothing short of woman's wit."

"Are there any women in your firm, Mr. Burnett?" asked Mrs. Mavick.

"Not yet, but I think there are plenty of lawyers who would be willing to take Portia for a partner."

"Make her what you call a consulting partner. That is just the way with you men--as soon as you see women succeeding in doing anything independently, you head them off by matrimony."

"Not against their wills," said the governess, with some decision.

"Oh, the poor things are easily hypnotized. And I'm glad they are. The funniest thing is to hear the Woman's Rights women talk of it as a state of subjection," and Mrs. Mavick laughed out of her deep experience.

"Rights, what's that?" asked Evelyn.

"Well, child, your education has been neglected. Thank McDonald for that."

"Don't you know, Evelyn," the governess explained, "that we have always said that women had a right to have any employment, or do anything they were fitted to do?"

"Oh, that, of course; I thought everybody said that. That is natural.

But I mean all this fuss. I guess I don't understand what you all are talking about." And her bright face broke out of its look of perplexity into a smile.

"Why, poor thing," said her mother, "you belong to the down-trodden s.e.x.

Only you haven't found it out."

"But, mamma," and the girl seemed to be turning the thing over in her mind, as was her wont with any new proposition, "there seem to be in history a good many women who never found it out either."

"It is not so now. I tell you we are all in a wretched condition."

"You look it, mamma," replied Evelyn, who perfectly understood when her mother was chaffing.

"But I think I don't care so much for the lawyers," Mrs. Mavick continued, with more air of conviction; "what I can't stand are the doctors, the female doctors. I'd rather have a female priest about me than a female doctor."

This was not altogether banter, for there had been times in Carmen's career when the externals of the Roman Church attracted her, and she wished she had an impersonal confidant, to whom she could confess--well, not everything-and get absolution. And she could make a kind of confidant of a sympathetic doctor. But she went on:

"To have a sharp woman prying into all my conditions and affairs! No, I thank you. Don't you think so, McDonald?"

"They do say," the governess admitted, "that women doctors haven't as much consideration for women's whims as men." And, after a moment, she continued:

"But, for all that, women ought to understand about women better than men can, and be the best doctors for them."

"So it seems to me," said Evelyn, appealing to her mother. "Don't you remember that day you took me down to the infirmary in which you are interested, and how nice it was, n.o.body but women for doctors and nurses and all that? Would you put that in charge of men?"

"Oh, you child!" cried Mrs. Mavick, turning to her daughter and patting her on the head. "Of course there are exceptions. But I'm not going to be one of the exceptions. Ah, well, I suppose I am quite behind the age; but the conduct of my own s.e.x does get on my nerves sometimes."

Evelyn was silent. She was often so when discussions arose. They were apt to plunge her into deep thought. To those who knew her history, guarded from close contact with anything but the world of ideas, it was very interesting to watch her mental att.i.tude as she was day by day emerging into a knowledge of the actual world and encountering its crosscurrents. To Philip, who was getting a good idea of what her education had been, an understanding promoted by his knowledge of the character and attainments of her governess, her mental processes, it may be safely said, opened a new world of thought. Not that mental processes made much difference to a man in his condition, still, they had the effect of setting her personality still further apart from that of other women. One day when they happened to be tete-a-tete in one of their frequent excursions--a rare occasion--Evelyn had said:

"How strange it is that so many things that are self-evident n.o.body seems to see, and that there are so many things that are right that can't be done."

"That is the way the world is made," Philip had replied. She was frequently coming out with the sort of ideas and questions that are often proposed by bright children, whose thinking processes are not only fresh but undisturbed by the sophistries or concessions that experience has woven into the thinking of our race. "Perhaps it hasn't your faith in the abstract."

"Faith? I wonder. Do you mean that people do not dare go ahead and do things?"

"Well, partly. You see, everybody is hedged in by circ.u.mstances."

"Yes. I do begin to see circ.u.mstances. I suppose I'm a sort of a goose --in the abstract, as you say." And Evelyn laughed. It was the spontaneous, contagious laugh of a child. "You know that Miss McDonald says I'm nothing but a little idealist."

"Did you deny it?"

"Oh, no. I said, so were the Apostles, all save one--he was a realist."

It was Philip's turn to laugh at this new definition, and upon this the talk had drifted into the commonplaces of the summer situation and about Rivervale and its people. Philip regretted that his vacation would so soon be over, and that he must say good-by to all this repose and beauty, and to the intercourse that had been so delightful to him.

"But you will write," Evelyn exclaimed.

Philip was startled.

"Write?"

"Yes, your novel."

"Oh, I suppose so," without any enthusiasm.

"You must. I keep thinking of it. What a pleasure it must be to create a real drama of life."

So this day on the veranda of the inn when Philip spoke of his hateful departure next day, and there was a little chorus of protest, Evelyn was silent; but her silence was of more significance to him than the protests, for he knew her thoughts were on the work he had promised to go on with.

"It is too bad," Mrs. Mavick exclaimed; "we shall be like a lot of sheep without a shepherd."

"That we shall," the governess joined in. "At any rate, you must make us out a memorandum of what is to be seen and done and how to do it."

"Yes," said Philip, gayly, "I'll write tonight a complete guide to Rivervale."

"We are awfully obliged to you for what you have done." Mrs. Mavick was no doubt sincere in this. And she added, "Well, we shall all be back in the city before long."

It was a natural thing to say, and Philip understood that there was no invitation in it, more than that of the most conventional acquaintance.

For Mrs. Mavick the chapter was closed.

There were the most cordial hand-shakings and good-bys, and Philip said good-by as lightly as anybody. But as he walked along the road he knew, or thought he was sure, that the thoughts of one of the party were going along with him into his future, and the peaceful scene, the murmuring river, the cat-birds and the blackbirds calling in the meadow, and the spirit of self-confident youth in him said not good-by, but au revoir.