The Sturdy Oak Part 7

"I know the direction you lean, Penfield Evans, letting--"

"But, Miss Emelene, I--"

"Letting that shameless Betty Sheridan, a girl that had as sweet and womanly a mother as Whitewater ever boasted, lead you around by the nose on her suffrage string. A girl with her raising and both of her grandmothers women that lived and died genteel, to go traipsing around in her low heels in men's offices and addressing hoi polloi from soap boxes! Why, between her and that female chauffeur, Mrs. Herrington, another woman whose mother was of too fine feelings even to join the Delsarte cla.s.s, the women of this town are being influenced to making disgraceful--dis--oh, what shall I say, Alys?"

Here Mrs. Smith broke in, thumping a soft fist into a soft palm.

"It's the most pernicious movement, Mr. Evans, that has ever got hold of this community and we need a man like my cousin George Remington to--"

"But, Mrs. Smith, that's just what I--"

"To stamp it out! Stamp it out! It's eating into the homes of Whitewater, trying to make breadwinners out of the creatures G.o.d intended for the bread-eaters--I mean bread-bakers."

"But, Mrs. Smith, I--"

"Woman's place has been the home since home was a cave, and it will be the home so long as women will remember that womanliness is their greatest a.s.set. As poor dear Mr. Smith was so fond of saying, he--I can't bring myself to talk of him, Mr. Evans, but--but as he used to say, I--I--"

"Yes, yes, Mrs. Smith, I understa--"

"But as my cousin says in his article, which in my mind should be spread broadcast, what higher mission for woman than--than--just what are his words, Emelene?"

Miss Brand leaned forward, her gaze boring into s.p.a.ce.

"What higher mission," she quoted, as if talking in a chapel, "for woman than that she sit enthroned in the home, wielding her invisible but mighty scepter from that throne, while man, kissing the hand that so lovingly commands him, shall bear her gifts and do her bidding. That is the strongest vote in the world. That is the universal suffrage which chivalry grants to woman. The unpolled vote! Long may it reign!"

Round spots of color had come out on Miss Emelene's long cheeks.

"A man who can think like that has the true--the true--what shall I say, Alys?"

"But, ladies, I protest that I'm not--"

"Has the true chivalry of spirit, Emelene, that the women are too stark raving mad to appreciate. You can't come here, Mr. Evans, to two women to whom womanliness and love of home, thank G.o.d, are still uppermost and try to convert us to--"

Here Mr. Evans executed a triple gyration, to the annoyance of Hanna, who withdrew from the gesture, and raised his voice to a shout that was not without a note of command.

"Convert you! Why women alive, what I've been bursting a blood vessel trying to say during the length of this interview is that I'd as soon dip my soul in boiling oil as try to convert you away from the cause.

_My_ cause! _Our_ cause!"

"Why--"

"I'm here to tell you that I'm with my partner head-over-heels on the plank he has taken."

"But we thought--"

"We thought you and Betty Sheridan--why, my cousin Genevieve Remington told me that--"

"Yes, yes, Miss Emelene. But not even the wiles of a pretty woman can hold out indefinitely against Truth! A broad-minded man has got to keep the door of his mind open to conviction, or it decays of mildew. I confess that finally I am convinced that if there is one platform more than another upon which George Remington deserves his election it is on the brave and chivalrous principles he has so courageously come out with in the current _Sentinel_. Whatever may have been between Betty Sheridan and--"

"Mr. Evans, you don't mean to tell me that you and Betty Sheridan have quarreled! Such a desirable match from every point of view, family and all! It goes to show what a rattle-pated bunch of women they are! Any really clever girl with an eye to her future, anti or pro, could s.h.i.+ft her politics when it came to a question of matri--"

"Mrs. Smith, there comes a time in every modern man's life when he's got to keep his politics and his pretty girls separate, or suffrage will get him if he don't watch out!"

"Yes, and Mr. Evans, if what I hear is true, a good-looking woman can talk you out of your safety deposit key!"

"That's where you're wrong, Mrs. Smith, and I'll prove it to you.

Despite any wavering I may have exhibited, I now stand, as George puts it in his article, 'ready to conserve the threatened flower of womanhood by also endeavoring to conserve her unpolled vote!' If you women want prohibition, it is in your power to sway man's vote to prohibition.

If you women want the moon, let man cast your proxy vote for it! In my mind, that is the true chivalry. To quote again, 'Woman is man's rarest heritage, his beautiful responsibility, and at all times his co-operation, support and protection are due her. His support and protection.'"

Miss Emelene closed her eyes. The red had spread in her cheeks and she laid her head back against the chair, rocking softly and stroking the thick-napped cat.

"The flower of womanhood," she repeated. "'His support and his protection.' If ever a man deserved high office because of high principles, it's my cousin George Remington! My cousin Genevieve Livingston Remington is the luckiest girl in the world, and not one of us Brands but what is willing to admit it. My two nephews, too, if their Aunt Emelene has anything to say, and I think she has--"

"Why, there isn't a stone in the world I wouldn't turn to see that boy in office," Mrs. Smith interrupted.

At that Mr. Evans rose.

"You mean that, Mrs. Smith?"

Miss Emelene rose with him, the cat pouring from her lap.

"Of course she means it, Penfield. What self-respecting woman wouldn't!"

Mr. Evans sat down again suddenly, Miss Emelene with him, and leaning violently forward, thrust his eager, sun-tanned face between the two women.

"Well, then, ladies, here's your chance to prove it! That's what brings me today. As two of the self-respecting, idealistic and womanly women of this community, I have come to urge you both to--"

"Oh, Mr. Evans!"

"Penfield, you are the flatterer!"

"To induce two such representative women as yourselves to help my partner to the election he so well deserves."

"Us?" "It is in your power, ladies, to demonstrate to Whitewater that George Remington's chivalry is not only on paper, but in his soul."

"But--how?"

"By throwing yourselves upon his generosity and hospitality, at least during the campaign. You have it in your power, ladies, to strengthen the only uncertain plank upon which George Remington stands today."

A clock ticked roundly into a silence tinged with eloquence. The Maltese leaped back into Miss Emelene's lap, purring there.

"You mean, Penfield, for us to go visit George--er--er--"

"Just that! Bag and baggage. As two relatives and two unattached women, it is your privilege, nay, your right."

"But--"

"He hasn't come out in words with it, but he has intimated that such an act from the representative antis of this town would more than anything strengthen his theories into facts. As unattached women, particularly as women of his own family, his support and protection, as he puts it, are due you, _due_ you!"

Mrs. Smith clasped her plentifully ringed fingers, and regarded him with her prominent eyes widening.