After the Storm Part 14

"About the same. They are like nearly all men--despisers of woman's intellect."

Irene sighed, and, letting her eyes fall to the floor, sat lost in thought for some moments. The suggestions of her friend were not producing agreeable states of mind.

"They reject the doctrine of an equality in the s.e.xes?" said Mrs.

Emerson.

"Of course. All men do that," replied Mrs. Talbot.

"Your husband among the rest?"

"Talbot? Oh, he's well enough in his way!" The lady spoke lightly, tossing her head in a manner that involved both indifference and contempt. "I never take him into account when discussing these matters. That point was settled between us long and long ago. We jog on without trouble. Talbot thinks as I do about the women--or pretends that he does, which is all the same."

"A rare exception to the general run of husbands," said Irene, thinking at the same time how immeasurably superior Mr. Emerson was to this weakling, and despising him in her heart for submitting to be ruled by a woman. Thus nature and true perception spoke in her, even while she was seeking to blind herself by false reasonings.

"Yes, he's a rare exception; and it's well for us both that it is so. If he were like your husband, for instance, one of us would have been before the legislature for a divorce within twelve months of our marriage night."

"Like my husband! What do you mean?" Mrs. Emerson drew herself up, with half real and half affected surprise.

"Oh, he's one of your men who have positive qualities about them--strong in intellect and will."

Irene felt pleased with the compliment bestowed upon her husband.

"But wrong in his ideas of woman."

"How do you know?" asked Irene.

"How do I know? As I know all men with whom I come in contact. I probe them."

"And you have probed my husband?"

"Undoubtedly."

"And do not regard him as sound on this subject?"

"No sounder than other men of his cla.s.s. He regards woman as man's inferior."

"I think you state the case too strongly," said Mrs. Emerson, a red spot burning on her cheek. "He thinks them mentally different."

"Of course he does."

"But not different as to superiority and inferiority," replied Irene.

"Mere hair-splitting, my child. If they are mentally different, one must be more highly organized than the other, and of course, superior. Mr. Emerson thinks a man's rational powers stronger than a woman's, and that, therefore, he must direct in affairs generally, and she follow his lead. I know; I've talked with and drawn him out on this subject."

Mrs. Emerson sighed again faintly, while her eyes dropped from the face of her visitor and sunk to the floor. A shadow was falling on her spirit--a weight coming down with a gradually increasing pressure upon her heart. She remembered the night of her return from Ivy Cliff and the language then used by her husband on this very subject, which was mainly in agreement with the range of opinions attributed to him by Mrs. Talbot.

"Marriage, to a spirited woman," she remarked, in a pensive undertone, "is a doubtful experiment."

"Always," returned her friend. "As woman stands now in the estimate of man, her chances for happiness are almost wholly on the side of old-maidism. Still, freedom is the price of struggle and combat; and woman will first have to show, in actual strife, that she is the equal of her present lord."

"Then you would turn every home into a battlefield?" said Mrs.

Emerson.

"Every home in which there is a tyrant and an oppressor," was the prompt answer. "Many fair lands, in all ages, have been trampled down ruthlessly by the iron feet of war; and that were better, as the price of freedom, than slavery."

Irene sighed again, and was again silent.

"What," she asked, "if the oppressor is so much stronger than the oppressed that successful resistance is impossible? that with every struggle the links of the chain that binds her sink deeper into her quivering flesh?"

"Every age and every land have seen n.o.ble martyrs in the cause of freedom. It is better to die for liberty than live an ign.o.ble slave," answered the tempter.

"And I will die a free woman." This Irene said in her heart.

CHAPTER XII.

IN BONDS.

_SENTIMENTS_ like these, coming to Irene as they did while she was yet chafing under a recent collision with her husband, and while the question of submission was yet an open one, were near proving a quick-match to a slumbering mine in her spirit, and had not her husband been in a more pa.s.sive state than usual, there might have been an explosion which would have driven them asunder with such terrific force that reunion must have been next to impossible.

It would have been well if their effects had died with the pa.s.sing away of that immediate danger. But as we think so we incline to act.

Our sentiments are our governors; and of all imperious tyrants, false sentiments are the most ruthless. The beautiful, the true, the good they trample out of the heart with a fiery malignity that knows no touch of pity; for the false is the bitter enemy of the true and makes with it no terms of amity.

The coldness which had followed their reconciliation might have gradually given way before the warmth of genuine love, if Irene had been left to the counsels of her own heart; if there had been no enemy to her peace, like Mrs. Talbot, to throw in wild, vague thoughts of oppression and freedom among the half-developed opinions which were forming in her mind. As it was, a jealous scrutiny of words and actions took the place of that tender confidence which was coming back to Irene's heart, and she became watchfully on the alert; not, as she might have been, lovingly ministrant.

Only a few days were permitted to elapse after the call of this unsafe friend before Irene returned the visit, and spent two hours with her, conning over the subject of woman's rights and woman's wrongs. Mrs. Talbot introduced her to writers on the vexed question, who had touched the theme with argument, sarcasm, invective and bold, brilliant, specious generalities; read to her from their books; commented on their deductions, and uttered sentiments on the subject of reform and resistance as radical as the most extreme.

"We must agitate--we must act--we must do good deeds of valor and self-sacrifice for our s.e.x," she said, in her enthusiastic way.

"Every woman, whether of high or low condition, of humble powers or vigorous intellect, has a duty to perform, and she is false to the honor and rights of her s.e.x if she do not array herself on the side of freedom. You have great responsibilities resting upon you, my young friend. I say it soberly, even solemnly. Responsibilities which may not be disregarded without evil consequences to yourself and others. You are young, clear-thoughted and resolute--have will, purpose and endurance. You are married to a young man destined, I think, to make his mark in the world; but, as I have said before, a false education has given him erroneous ideas on this great and important subject. Now what is your duty?"

The lady paused as if for an answer.

"What is your duty, my dear young friend?" she repeated.

"I will answer for you," she continued. "Your duty is to be true to yourself and to your sisters in bonds."

"In bonds! _I_ in bonds!" Mrs. Talbot touched her to the quick.

"Are you a free woman?" The inquiry was calmly made.

Irene started to the floor and moved across the room, then turned and came back again. Her cheeks burned and her eyes flashed. She stood before Mrs. Talbot and looked at her steadily.

"The question has disturbed you?" said the lady.

"It has," was the brief answer.