He helped her with her cloak and they went down the stairway. Once in the car, with Margaret bundled in robes he turned to the boulevards and they fell into talk again. They liked to talk to each other. They elucidated things between them. They liked the calmness of each other’s reactions, the sense of mutual control they had as they held a subject poised on their reflections, as they explored the sensitive delicacy of some thought. Politics, people, books--but always their talk strayed back to men and women. As if in that kind of talk they got most pleasure from each other, as if the subject were inexhaustible. Walter had told Margaret a great deal about himself and she had listened with interest. Then little by little under that cloak of the impersonal she had told him something of herself, her interest in women. “Not that I idealize them. I don’t. But they are far more interesting than any work--their problems are the biggest in the world.” “Are you looking for still further concessions?” “You mustn’t use that word. We’re looking for the truth in the situation. You think because we vote that the game’s up, don’t you? It’s not. If women are ever going to be--women, Mr. Carpenter, they’ve got to develop all the qualities they’ve been letting rot and decay for hundreds of years. A few women have preserved the strength all women should have. But most of them--Do you dream that most of them have an idea of doing any real work--want any real work? Do you think they’re going to give up their security of support without a struggle? They don’t want independence in the majority of cases. They want certain rules relaxed for their convenience. But do you think that basically they want to give up their claim developed through ages as a ‘weaker sex’?” She stopped, at the little smile in his eyes. “You think I’m as oratorical as Mrs. Thorstad, don’t you?” “I do not, but I was thinking that it was time we had some dinner.” They stopped at one of the hotels and maneuvered their way through a crowded, ornate dining-room to a little table on the side of the room, Walter bowing gravely to a great many people as they went along. “You’re a very solid citizen, aren’t you?” asked Margaret. “I like solid citizens,” he answered, “are they too on your list of obnoxious people and things?” “Of course they are not.” “I was a little worried after that list began developing. I don’t want to be on the list of people you don’t like.” But it was not until they had finished dinner and were drinking coffee that he developed that thought. “I wonder if you know how hard you women are making things for men,” he said, not abruptly but as if stating his brief. “Perhaps it was too easy before.” “Perhaps. But you make it so difficult--you stand so aggressively strong--so independent of us that we can’t find a thing with which to recommend ourselves. You don’t want our protection--our support--you mistrust our motives.”