"Because otherwise she would be giving everything and you nothing. You must supply something which she lacks or it wouldn't be a fair trade, would it? If a woman loves a man, there is no need to measure what she gives against what she receives, but your 'common-sense' plan suggests it, and from a 'scientific' standpoint I should think it absolutely essential." "But your statement is not correct, Miss Merry," Cosden protested earnestly. "You would do me an injustice if you stopped at that point: am I not offering her my name and my protection?" "Of course all this is an imaginary situation," Merry laughed mischievously, "or I shouldn't dare to speak so freely; but in justice to my sex I can't stop now: suppose her name is as good as yours, and that she is entirely competent to protect herself?" "Great Scott! Don't tell me you are a suffragist!" "But you would want this woman you--intend to get to be a suffragist, wouldn't you?" "Not under any circumstances!" "Still, your marriage is to be on an up-to-date common-sense, scientific basis: can it be unless you and your wife stand on equal terms?" "I never saw such a girl to ask questions," Cosden protested almost petulantly. "You must have been going to woman's suffrage meetings all winter." Merry laughed outright. Her triumph was too obvious not to be enjoyed; but she quickly checked herself. "I have been very rude," she said contritely; "but what you said so completely destroys the vision which every girl has in her heart that I couldn't resist the temptation to tease you. No, Mr. Cosden; I'm not a suffragist, and I never attended a public meeting in my life. Mother thinks I'm too young to enter into such things; but I've read a good deal, and I can't see why, in this scientific age, men and women shouldn't stand side by side at the ballot-box as well as elsewhere. For myself, I'm not quite ready for it, but I admit that it is nothing but sentiment--a holding on to a bit of old-fashioned precedent if you like--which holds me back. It seems to mar that vision I just spoke of, Mr. Cosden, even as your ideas completely destroy it." She was in earnest now, and the girlish, mischievous attitude had completely vanished. Her grasp upon the tiller tightened, her eyes looked far ahead and Cosden knew that in this mood she would have welcomed a young typhoon--anything to struggle with, rather than the smooth lapping of the water against the sides of the boat as the light wind bore them tranquilly on toward their landing. Even to him, unaccustomed as he was to the finer sensibilities which expressed themselves in every feature of the girl's face, the surging thoughts which forced so tense a silence commanded silence in his own response. It was the closest he had ever come into a woman's inner shrine, and instinctively he respected it.