An American Suffragette Part 6

He paused, and she took away her hand, and laid it lightly on his shoulder as he sank down on the seat before the piano.

"Please don't," she said gently. "Don't you see that you are quite right? If it were really, truly love that had come to you, I should feel it also, there could be no question of doubting or daring; no thought of hopelessness. Some time you will know that this is true, when some other heart speaks to yours in the unmistakable tone of the one only love of your heart. Each of us has his place in life, and in the lives of those with whom we come in contact. No one can ever have your place; I can't tell you how much rest and happiness you have brought me when I have been a-weary of this world. Come, Orrin, don't rob me of my friend that I may lose a lover."

By a herculean effort he restrained his feelings, and answered lightly, "You shall keep your friend, my sorceress of song," but he added under his breath, "Look to it, when the lover comes, for you may still lose _him_." Then he took up his violin, and the night became a splendid harmony, despite the discord that raged in his soul.

CHAPTER X

A DISCUSSION OF PROGRESSIVE WOMEN

The group that had foregathered about Mrs. Ramsey's tea-table that Thursday afternoon had scattered and gone its several ways. The last of them was bidding her adieu as her husband entered and joined her brothers, who were lingering for a farewell word with her, each occupied in characteristic fas.h.i.+on, John gazing into the fire that smouldered on the grate, for it was a raw and chilly afternoon, and Frank endeavoring to coax a last cup of tea from the silver tea-ball and the still steaming kettle.

"If you really want another cup, Frank, let me have the tea-ball refilled," Mrs. Ramsey said, and then laying her hand on her elder brother's shoulder, "A new Lincoln penny for your thoughts, Jack. You look as if they might be romantic, but I suppose you are really off on the quest of the blooming bacillus or the meandering microbe, or hanging over--what is it you call your garden beds of disease--a culture?"

He looked up and patted her hand. "It is too bad not to be able to be a hero to one's own sister, but the truth is, I wasn't thinking at all, just wool-gathering. By the way, Frank, are you going to motor down to that meeting of Miss Holland's to-night?"

"Wool-gathering, he calls it!" said the younger man, letting his lump of sugar clatter on his saucer. "I'd say it was all cry and no wool; at least you are pulling none over my eyes. Am I going to motor down to hear the protests of the proletariat to-night? No, dear brother, I am not. When I go out to mingle with the down-trodden and oppressed I take the 'L'; a surface car would be even more appropriate, but they take forever, and I compromise on the 'L,' but you never did have any sense of dramatic fitness."

"Might I ask why this sudden interest in the militant laboring ladies?"

said Ramsey, drawing up his chair before the fire, and lighting a cigarette. "Are you going to obtrude your somewhat ma.s.sive personality upon the scene?"

"Yes, that's what I'd like to know," added Frank.

The doctor laughed rather diffidently. "Why not?" he said. "Why shouldn't I go, if I wish to?"

Frank flung out his hands with a gesture of mock despair. "Now, wouldn't that come and get you!" he said. "I appeal to you, Hilda. You were present; you heard Miss Holland invite me to this Manifesto Makers'

meeting. You know she never said a word to Jack; she didn't even look at him. He was foolish enough to let her see that he was already a convert to her little gospel, and therefore no longer in need of her ministrations. But as for me, 'I was a wandering sheep; I did not love the fold,' and hence, as a good missionary, she feels a deep interest in me. Off and on, I should say at least fifty Colorado women have tried to make a suffragist of me. Some of them were very pretty," he added reminiscently, "and I've noticed that the prettier they are the longer it takes 'em to make me see the error of my ways. Now with Miss Holland, I wouldn't mind letting her tinker with my political views so long as we both shall live."

"Frank, you are incorrigible," said his sister. "If Miss Holland knew what a flighty, inconsequent infant you are, she wouldn't waste a thought on you, let alone a whole evening. What makes you want to go, anyhow?"

"What's the use of her wasting thoughts on a solemn dub like our brother?" he demanded aggrievedly. "What business has he trailing the soap-boxing suffragers around when he is about to take upon himself vows to cleave only to the daughter of a militant 'Anti' leader, some time when he can jar himself loose from his professional cares long enough for a honeymoon?"

"I'm afraid, Jack, you will find your prospective mother-in-law quite as strenuous as the most ardent of the suffragists," said his sister. "I haven't gone into this thing at all, I haven't time, but it is certainly amusing to watch the 'Antis' outdo even the most ardent suffragettes by way of proving their contention that woman's sphere is home. If they were consistent, they would never appear in public----"

"Except by 'Now comes the counsel for the defendant,'" interrupted Frank, "but they never are. There is a little bunch of them in Colorado who have failed to command the same attention in politics that their money imposes upon the social world, so they rush into type and get themselves interviewed and asked to speak when they come East, all by way of proving their sensitive and shrinking nature. I don't agree with the suffragists, not a little bit, but I can fraternize with them; they are sincere, but none of the 'Antis' for me; never saw one yet who wasn't either a sn.o.b or so narrow-minded that a toothpick would look like the Brooklyn Bridge by comparison."

"Hear, hear!" cried Jack. "Miss Holland has certainly made an impression upon you; not that I see what difference it makes, since women already vote where you hail from."

"That just goes to show how foolish a smart man can be," replied his brother cheerfully. "You think because you may have a vote on the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of women that it is very important what you think, but is it? Not at all. But with me it is different. I've paid office rent in Denver for two years, and spent a third of the time here or in Was.h.i.+ngton. I've looked in on two State conventions, and forgot to register at the last election, but because I come from Colorado I am considered an authority on woman suffrage, and when I say it's no good, and swell out my chest and look gloomy, it has great weight, great weight!" He leaned back in his chair and gave way to unseemly mirth as he recalled some occasion on which he had evidently hoaxed some trusting reporter.

"Nonsense, Frank," his brother-in-law answered. "I don't believe you know the first thing about politics or suffrage, or what the women have done or haven't done."

"There you wrong me," the young man answered gravely. "The first thing to know in politics is when to come into the game and when to keep out.

Personally, I can't make my firm believe that it is cheaper to buy the other fellows' men after they are elected than it is to try to elect our own, and have them raise the ante on us, but they'll come to it after a while. As to the women, bless you, voting doesn't change their nature, and so long as women are willing to believe what men tell them, it's mighty unsafe to trust them with the ballot. Before you know it, they'll find us out, and then you'll see the first result of the suffragist dream of heaven on earth--there'll be no more marrying or giving in marriage. Oh, I'm dead against it!"

They all joined in the laughter that followed this sally, and Hilda said thoughtfully, "If you boys are intent on this meeting, I'll hurry dinner, for they probably begin early." As she rose to go, Frank caught her hand with the piteous entreaty, "Oh, please make my big brother take his marbles and go home. He wasn't asked to this party. Miss Holland didn't say a thing to him. I don't see why he has to have first show with all the pretty girls in New York!"

"When Miss Holland knows you, and all your native charm, she will never smile again upon your older brother," laughed his sister, "but in the meantime I suppose it's an open meeting, and we can't prevent his going.

But don't worry; his fatal beauty will but serve as a foil to your more sparkling type. Besides, with your vivid imagination, unhampered by a slavish subserviency to facts, you should be able to furnish canards that will occupy all Miss Holland's time for a month."

As she left the room her husband opened the door, and her brothers rose and remained standing until it was closed after her.

"If all women were like her----" Frank said impulsively, but Ramsey stopped him.

"If half of them were like her," he said reverently, "I would be in favor of turning the government over to them, certain that the hand that rocks the cradle would never give this storm-tossed old world more shaking up than is good for it."

CHAPTER XI

THE ADVANCING COLUMN OF DEMOCRACY

As the two brothers turned into the cross street that led to the hall where the Industrial League had its headquarters and held its weekly meetings, Dr. Earl laid his hand on Frank's shoulder.

"Dear old fellow," he said affectionately, "would you mind telling me what on earth possesses you to come down here to-night? I'm not asking out of mere curiosity, nor do I believe that is the motive that brings you."

"Then if I say the pursuit of the good, the true and the beautiful, you will not believe me?" his brother answered lightly.

"I shall know you do not wish to tell me the real reason, and will drop it, but I shall not be deceived. I haven't studied my kind for this long without knowing at least the a-b-c of human nature. You use your cap and bells and an air of frivolity to conceal your true character from the world, as other men cloak themselves in an atmosphere of austerity and reserve."

"Discovered!" cried Frank, with a laugh, "after all these years in which I flattered myself I had made such a good job of it, too. Truth to tell, no mask and domino ever afforded such perfect protection as the jingle of my jester's bells. I am apparently so given up to pomps and vanities that n.o.body gives me credit for a serious thought, and so takes no pains to conceal his own from me. It has long been one of the wonders of my world how I hold my job."

"Well, since you put it that way, I have asked myself at times how you have achieved the standing you have in your profession, a standing of which we are all immensely proud, by the way. But if you are a profound student, it is something recent; I used to think you learned too easily ever to know how to study, and law is a vocation."

"Law is one thing and success in the legal profession is another," said the young man oracularly. "Between our omnipresent legislatures which spend our time and money repealing what we lawyers already know, and enacting laws for the courts to set aside, these are what might be called parlous times for the profession, but my long suit is not in understanding statutes, but people."

Insensibly he had dropped his flippant tone, and was speaking, seriously, with conviction. There was a moment's pause and then Jack said, "And you go to this meeting because----?"

"Because, little as I like it, I am not such a fool that I do not know that the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of women is certain, and it may help me to understand the new and troublesome element which is to be injected into public life if I watch the workings from the beginning. Anyhow, it is part of my business to understand these things, and hence my acceptance of Miss Holland's invitation. This is the place, isn't it?"

The house differed in no wise from the rest of the block, save in its air of thrift and cleanliness, and the bra.s.s plate on the door bore the name, "Industrial League House." It was evidently a settlement with resident workers, for a troop of boys was straggling down into the bas.e.m.e.nt, where a gymnasium had been established, and several young women were standing in the hall discussing some matter connected with sterilized milk. At the right of the wide hall there was a large, old-fas.h.i.+oned double parlor, with plenty of chairs for a meeting of sixty or seventy people, and perhaps half that many were already in the room. They were singing as the two men entered, and Dr. Earl and Frank stood in the hallway listening to the words sung to the soul-stirring old tune of "John Brown's Body."

"These are they who build thy houses, weave thy raiment, win thy wheat, Smooth the rugged, fill the barren, turn the bitter into sweet; All for thee this day--and ever. What reward for them is meet?

Till the host comes marching on."

As they struck into the chorus, the boys downstairs took up the swelling chords, and it was echoed from the street beyond.

"Hark, the rolling of the thunder; Lo, the sun! and lo! thereunder Riseth wrath, and hope, and wonder, And the host comes marching on."

"I wonder whether they sing the sixth stanza," said Frank curiously.

Jack looked at him in amazement. "What is the song?" he asked, conscious that he was getting new sidelights upon his younger brother's character this evening.

"It's William Morris' 'March of the Workers,' and the verse I'm talking about begins, 'O, ye rich men, hear and tremble.' Come on in, Jack," and a moment later John Earl heard his brother's beautiful voice take up the words: