The one hope expressed everywhere was that, being the timid things that they were, the women would not know how to keep the grip they had upon the situation. "Hang it! They are our wives and daughters. We ought to be able to do what we always have done, direct them and control them through their affections," said Acres, turning up the ends of his moustache with a kind of bantam bravado. "If a woman has nothing but her affections it is easy enough to manage her, but nobody knows what use she may make of her heels if she has everything else besides," growled Coleman, who had just come from a breakfast table where his wife, Agatha, had pointedly refused to give him certain information about the Co-Citizens' Foundation which he knew she had. "It's all a huge joke, that's what this damphule will is," said Briggs gloomily. "Of course the suffrage part of it is a joke. The state constitution is plain on that question. Only males can vote," Acres agreed. "But, hang it! They've got this vast estate, which affects every business interest in this town, and the devil only knows what they will do with it!" exclaimed Coleman. "Ask your wife," Sasnett suggested. "I did ask Mabel," Acres admitted. "What'd she say?" "Said they'd collect the rents and interest first thing." Sasnett laughed, and Briggs seized his hat and left the room with the air of an injured man. While these desultory conferences were being held all over the town Monday morning, where two or three were gathered together on the streets, Susan Walton was sitting opposite Judge Regis in his office. Her knees were wide apart, her hands folded above her fat stomach. She had untied her bonnet strings, which was a bad-weather indication. The Judge was listening with his eye fixed keenly upon her, the hair above his temples sticking out like owl's ears. "I've bluffed it so far, John Regis. I've reorganized the Civic League and Cemetery Association into the Co-Citizens' League, which was no small undertaking, I can tell you. Half the women would not have joined if they'd known what they were doing. I got them by not explaining how immediate the business of getting suffrage is, and by offering scandalous committee appropriations. But I'm shaking in my shoes. I don't know how we are to carry out the conditions of this trust. The more I think of it, the more I suspect Sarah Mosely of being plain crazy!" "She's the first woman in this country to meet the issue of suffrage for women with the sanity of practical common sense," he answered. "But she's limited her bequest to use in this county. Suffrage is a state issue. I should know. I have given years of thought to it." "Yes, you've spent your energies like the rest of them, Susan, in mere agitation, in parades with transparencies bearing the legend, 'Votes for Women!' The last one of you might as well be blowing your breath against the order of things. Nothing could be more futile."