Feminist fiction; Women -- Social and moral questions -- Fiction; Young women -- Fiction
Kate greeted her hostess, and looked about her for the guest of honor.
It transpired that the affair was quite informal, after all. The
Englishwoman was sitting in a tea-tent discoursing with a number of
gentlemen who hung over her with polite attentions. They were well-known
bachelors of advanced ideas--men with honorary titles and personal
ambitions. The great suffragist was very much at home with them. Her
deep, musical voice resounded like a bell as she uttered her dicta and
her witticisms. She--like the men--was smoking a cigarette, a feat which
she performed without coquetry or consciousness. She was smoking because
she liked to smoke. It took no more than a glance to reveal the fact
that she was further along in her pregnancy than Marna--Marna who
started back from the door when a stranger appeared at it lest she
should seem immodest. But the suffragette, having acquired an applauding
and excellent husband, saw no reason why she should apologize to the
world for the processes of nature. Quite as unconscious of her condition
as of her unconventionality in smoking, she discoursed with these
diverted men, her transparent frock revealing the full beauties of her
neck and bust, her handsome arms well displayed--frankly and insistently
feminine, yet possessing herself without hesitation of what may be
termed the masculine attitude toward life.
For some reason which Kate did not attempt to define, she refrained from
discussing the Bureau of Children with the celebrated suffragette,
although she did not doubt that the Englishwoman would have been capable
of keen and valuable criticism. Instead, she returned to the city, sent
a box of violets to Marna, and then went on to her attic room.
A letter was awaiting her from the West. It read:
"MY DEAR MISS BARRINGTON:--
"Honora and the kiddies are here. I have given my cousin a
room where she can see the mountains on two sides, and I hope
it will help. I've known the hills to help, even with pretty
rough customers. It won't take a creature like Honora long to
get hold of the secret, will it? You know what I mean,
I guess.
"I wish you had come. I watched the turn in the drive to see
if you wouldn't be in the station wagon. There were two
women's heads. I recognized Honora's, and I tried to think
the second one was yours, but I really knew it wasn't. It was
a low head--one of that patient sort of heads--and a flat,
lid-like hat. The nurse's, of course! I suppose you wear
helmet-shaped hats with wings on them--something like
Mercury's or Diana's. Or don't they sell that kind of
millinery nowadays?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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