“You couldn’t get absorbed in his enthusiasm because you’ve got one of your own, haven’t you?” “I have yours.” Mrs. Thompson patted her affectionately on the arm. Her contacts were all warm and intimate. With men and women alike, she seemed to get inside their minds and look out on the world as they saw it. “You’re a dear girl,” she told her, “but you must remember that humanity is a bigger thing even than feminism, Margaret. Be a little more tender towards the poor men. After all, they can’t all be transported.” All afternoon the crowds swelled. In the evening the great hotel dining-rooms were filled with people who represented almost everything--power, wealth, notoriety, ambition. Headquarters were established. Newspaper men idled to and fro, joking, prophesying, gossiping. Underneath the fatuousness of much of the pretense that this was a great popular meeting, most of the people knew that the rules were already laid down and things would take their course--must take their course. And yet there was a certain amount of fair speculation as to whether in some way the great leaders might not be outwitted after all--whether some new element might not show sudden strength, whether the unorganized, half formulated hopes and ideals of millions of ordinary people might this time put themselves across and lead instead of follow. The Convention, like the world, was attuned to surprises, revolts, inexplicable overturnings. Helen was more than excited. A little less than two days ago she had felt that she could not go on with this--that the personal agony had to be fought out first. To her amazement she found that Margaret had been right. Helen had always agreed with her that women were really not dependent on emotion but that had been because Margaret’s contention seemed reasonable and to take the other side hardly worthy. An inner feeling had persisted that after all Margaret was unmarried and didn’t--couldn’t know the strength of the emotional pull. But now she found herself breaking through personal emotional wreckage to impersonal interest--or if not impersonal interest at least interest in which sex played no part. She had at first kept up the signs of control because she must. Now she no longer needed the signs. She thought of Gage almost dispassionately. Now and then the tragedy of the ruined feeling between them shook her violently. But she could see their situation spread out before her. She could see it in relation to the children, to other work. She could see where things must be stopped in that they did not improve. And most of the time she hardly thought of Gage at all. She was responding to all the excitement and interest and admiration around her. She felt part of a great organization about to act in ways which would affect the world. The great sensibility of her woman’s imagination, undulled by much experience in the direction of things beyond her contact, was played upon by a vision of great power which she might help direct.