E. Eliot smiled rather grimly at her blotting-pad, looked up at Betty, and allowed her smile to change its quality. What she said was not what she had meant to say before she looked up. E. Eliot was always upbraiding herself for being sentimental about youth and beauty in her own sex. She'd never been beautiful, and she'd never been young--not young like Betty. But the upbraidings never did any good. She said: "I thought I had considered sufficiently when I answered Mr. Remington's note. But it's possible I hadn't. What is it you think I may have overlooked?" "Why," said Betty, "George thought the reason you wouldn't take the cottages was because a woman owned them. He used it as a sort of example of how women wouldn't stick together. He said that you probably knew that women were unreasonable and hard to deal with and didn't want the bother." It disconcerted Betty a little that E. Eliot interposed no denial at this point, though she'd paused to give her the opportunity. "You see," she went on a little breathlessly, "I'm for women suffrage and economic independence and all that. I think it's perfectly wonderful that you should be doing what you are--showing that women can be just as successful in business as men can. Of course I know that you've got a perfect _right_ to do just what a man would do--refuse to take a piece of business that wasn't worth while. But--but what we hope is, and what we want to show men is, that when women get into politics and business they'll be better and less selfish." "Which do you mean will be better?" E. Eliot inquired. "The politics and the business, or the women?" "I mean the politics and the business," Betty told her rather frostily. Was the woman merely making fun of her? E. Eliot caught the note. "I meant my question seriously," she said. "It has a certain importance. But I didn't mean to interrupt you. Go ahead." "Well," Betty said, "that's about all. George--Mr. Remington--that is--is running for district attorney, and he has come out against suffrage as you know. I thought perhaps this was a chance to convert him a little. It would be a great favor to him, anyway, if you took the cottages; because he doesn't know whom to turn to, if you won't. I didn't come to try to tell you what your duty is, but I thought perhaps you hadn't just looked at it that way." "All right," said E. Eliot. "Now I'll tell you how I do look at it. In the first place, about doing business for women. It all depends on the woman you're doing business with. If she's had the business training of a man, she's as easy to deal with as a man. If she's never had any business training at all, if business doesn't mean anything to her except some vague hocus-pocus that produces her income, then she's seven kinds of a Tartar.