Jimmie tried to hide what was going on; and of course--poor, naive soul--he had never learned to hide anything in his life, and now was too late to begin. The next time the local met, the women were saying that they were disappointed in Comrade Higgins; they had thought he was really devoted to the cause, but they saw now he was like all the rest of the men--his head had been turned by one smile on a pretty face. Instead of attending to his work, he was following that Baskerville creature about, gazing at her yearningly, like a moon-calf, making a ninny of himself before the whole room. And he with a wife and three babies at home, waiting for him and thinking he was hustling for the cause. When the meeting adjourned, and the Baskerville creature accepted the invitation of Comrade Gerrity to escort her home, the dismay of Comrade Higgins was so evident as to be ludicrous to the whole room. V In the interest of common decency it was necessary for the women of the local to take action on this matter. At least, a couple of them thought so, and quite independently and without pre-arrangement they called on Lizzie next day and told her that she should come more frequently to meetings, and keep herself acquainted with the new ideas of advanced feminism. And so when Jimmie came home that night, he found his wife dissolved in tears and there was a most harrowing scene. For poor Elizabeth Huszar, pronounced Eleeza Betooser, had had no chance whatever to familiarize herself with the new ideas of advanced feminism. Her notions of “free unions” had been derived from a quite different world, whose ideas were not new, but on the contrary very, very old, and were “advanced” only on the road to perdition. She judged Jimmie's behaviour according to thoroughly old standards, and she was broken-hearted, overwhelmed with grief and shame. He was like all the rest of men--and when she had fondly thought he was different! He despised her and spit upon her--a woman he had picked up in a brothel. Poor Jimmie was stunned. He was conscious of no disrespect for Lizzie, it had not occurred to him to think that she might take the matter that way. But so she had taken it, beyond doubt, and with intensity that frightened him. He would not have believed that so many tears could stream from one woman's eyes--nor that his good, broad-faced, honest wife could be so abject in her misery. “Oh, I knowed it, I knowed it all along--it would be that way! I hadn't never ought to married you--you know I told you so?” “But, Lizzie!” pleaded the husband. “You're mistaken. That hadn't nothin' to do with it.” She turned upon him wildly, her fingers stuck out as if she would claw him. “You mean to tell me if you hadn't 'a married a woman off the street, you'd 'a gone chasin' a fluffy-haired girl? If you'd 'a had a decent wife, that you knowed had some rights--” “Lizzie!” he protested in consternation. “Listen here--”