But I learned--or thought I learned. Power, I discovered early. My father had power. He was a magnate--I believe that is the correct phrase. Power was what I needed. But how? I was a woman. Again I dreamed my dream--a modified dream. Only by marriage could I win to power. And there you have the clew to me and what I am and have become. I met the man who was to become my husband. He was clean and strong and an athlete, an outdoor man, a wealthy man and a rising politician. Father told me that if I married him he would make him the power of his state, make him governor, send him to the United States Senate. And there you have it all. {Knox} Yes?---- Yes? {Margaret} I married. I found that there were greater forces at work than I had ever dreamed of. They took my husband away from me and molded him into the political lieutenant of my father. And I was without power. I could do nothing for the cause. I was beaten. Then it was that I got a new vision. The future belonged to the children. There I could play my woman's part. I was a mother. Very well. I could do no better than to bring into the world a healthy son and bring him up to manhood healthy and wholesome, clean, noble, and alive. Did I do my part well, through him the results would be achieved. Through him would the work of the world be done in making the world healthier and happier for all the human creatures in it. I played the mother's part. That is why I left the pitiful little charities of the church and devoted myself to settlement work and tenement house reform, established my kindergartens, and worked for the little men and women who come so blindly and to whom the future belongs to make or mar. {Knox} You are magnificent. I know, now, why I come when you bid me come. {Margaret} And then you came. You were magnificent. You were my knight of the windmills, tilting against all power and privilege, striving to wrest the future from the future and realize it here in the present, now. I was sure you would be destroyed. Yet you are still here and fighting valiantly. And that speech of yours to-morrow-- {Chalmers} (_Who has approached, bearing Dolores Ortega's cup._) Yes, that speech. How do you do, Mr. Knox. (_They shake hands._) A cup of tea, Madge. For Mrs. Ortega. Two lumps, please. (_Margaret prepares the cup of tea._) Everybody is excited over that speech. You are going to give us particular fits, to-morrow, I understand. {Knox} (_Smiling._) Really, no more than is deserved. {Chalmers} The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? {Knox} Precisely. (_Receiving back cup of tea from Margaret._) {Chalmers} Believe me, we are not so black as we're painted. There are two sides to this question. Like you, we do our best to do what is right. And we hope, we still hope, to win you over to our side. (_Knox shakes his head with a quiet smile._) {Margaret} Oh, Tom, be truthful. You don't hope anything of the sort. You know you are hoping to destroy him.