“Why--it never occurred to me,” said Gage, puffing a little harder at his cigar. “That I might get married?” “I don’t know. I rather thought that if you married you’d pick a different sort of a girl.” “I might have done that a long time ago. I’ve seen enough sorts. No--I never have seen one before who really--” He paused reflectively, unaccustomed in the language of emotion. “She’s a fine looking girl.” Gage felt he must pay some tribute. “She is fine looking. She has a face that you can’t forget--not for a minute.” “But,” said Gage, “you must know that she’s the rankest kind of a woman’s righter--a feminist.” “What’s a feminist?” asked Walter calmly. “Damned if I know. It means anything any woman wants it to mean. It’s driven everybody to incoherence. But what I mean is that that kind of woman doesn’t make any concessions to--sex.” They lifted the conversation away from Margaret into a generalization. Both of them wanted to talk about her but it couldn’t be done with her as an openly acknowledged example. “Well,” answered Carpenter, “perhaps that was coming to us. Perhaps we were expecting women to make too many concessions to sex. There are a lot of uncultivated qualities in women you know. They can’t devote all their time to our meals and our children.” “I don’t object to their devoting their time to anything they like. I do object to their scattering themselves, wearing themselves out on a lot of damned nonsense. Let them vote. Granted we’ve got to have a few female political hacks like this Thorstad woman. It won’t hurt her any. It’s all right for Mrs. Brownley--and that type of wise old girl--to play at politics. But for a woman--a young woman who ought to be finding out all the things in life that belong to her, who ought to be--letting herself go naturally--being a woman--for her to go in for a spellbinder’s career is depressing and worse.” Walter smiled quizzically. “Haven’t women always been just that, spellbinders? Isn’t that the job we gave them long ago? Haven’t women been spellbinders for thousands of years?” “God knows they have,” said Gage. He was silent for a moment, recollecting his argument, then plunged on. “It was all right when it was instinctive and natural but now it’s so damned self-conscious. They’re picking all their instincts to pieces, reading Freud on sex, analyzing every honest caress, worrying about being submerged in homes and husbands. It’s wrecking, I tell you, Walter. It’s spoiling their grain. And I’ll tell you another thing. It’s the women’s colleges that start it all. If I had my way I’d burn the things to the ground. They start all the trouble.” Walter broke the silence again. “The reason I wanted to talk to you was because some of the difficulties you suggest were simmering in my own mind. And it always seemed to me that you and Helen got away with the whole business so well. You’ve had children--you’ve managed to keep everything--haven’t you worked it out for yourself anyway?”