The great train labored in, paused for no more than a moment, and was off again. It left Wander's world well denuded. The sense of aching loneliness was like an agony. She had evaded him. She belonged to him, and he had somehow let her go! What had he said, or failed to say? What had she desired that he had not given? He tried to assure himself that he had been guiltless, but as he passed his sleeping village and glimpsed the ever-increasing dumps before his mines, he knew in his heart that he had been asking her to play his game. Of course, on the other hand-- But what was the use of running around in a squirrel cage! She was gone. He was alone. XXXI The Federation of Women's Clubs! Two thousand women gathered in the name of--what? Why, of culture, of literature, of sisterhood, of benevolence, of music, art, town beautification, the abolition of child-labor, the abolition of sweat-shops, the extension of peace and opportunity. And run how? By politics, sharp and keen, far-seeing and combative. The results? The coöperation of forceful women, the encouragement of timid ones; the development of certain forms of talent, and the destruction of some old-time virtues. The balance? On the side of good, incontestably. "Yes, it's on the side of good," said Honora, who was, after all, like a nun (save that her laboratory had been her cell, and a man's fame her passion), and who therefore brought to this vast, highly energized, capable, various gathering a judgment unprejudiced, unworldly, and clear. As she saw these women of many types, from all of the States, united in great causes, united, too, in the cultivation of things not easy of definition, she felt that, in spite of drawbacks, it must be good. She listened to their papers, heard their earnest propaganda. A distinguished Jewess from New York told of the work among the immigrants and the methods by which they were created into intelligent citizens; a beautiful Kentuckian spoke of the work among the white mountaineers; a very venerable gentlewoman from Chicago, exquisitely frail, talked on behalf of the children in factories; a crisp, curt, efficient woman from Oregon advocated the dissemination of books among the "lumber-jacks." They were ingenious in their pursuit of benevolences, and their annual reports were the impersonal records of personal labors. They had started libraries, made little parks, inaugurated playgrounds, instituted exchanges for the sale of women's wares, secured women internes in hospitals, paid for truant officers, founded children's protective associations, installed branches of the Associated Charities, encouraged night schools, circulated art exhibits and traveling libraries; they had placed pictures in the public schools, founded kindergartens--the list seemed inexhaustible. "Oh, decidedly," Kate granted Honora, "the thing seems to be good."