“I have read all the cant of the day,” she continued, passionately, “about woman’s rights, and my soul has risen in hot rebellion against it. I want no voice in Parliament. I never care to see women aping the dress, the manners, the habits of men. But, oh! for the time when women shall meet with justice, with fair play, with protection, instead of tyranny. I should like to ask the wise and honored of the land when that time is coming?”
Her sudden, passionate vehemence carried him away. Fire from a rock or stone could not have astounded him more than this vehemence from a woman whom he had always looked upon as colder than frost or snow.
“The mission of women should be to protect women,” he said.
She laughed scornfully.
“It should be, but what is the reality? Oppression where it is possible, tyranny where it is feasible, ill-treatment, unkindness everywhere.”
“No, not everywhere,” he interrupted. “Now you are unjust, Mrs. Payton; there are men in whom the true spirit of chivalry yet lives. There are men who would die for a woman’s smile—I would have done it myself. There are men who ask from God no higher, nobler mission than to make the woman they love happy. Do you not believe this?”
The fire in her dark eyes was dimmed by a rain of tears.
“I can believe it of you,” she said, “but not of many. I have been the victim of the oppression and injustice of men; you know nothing of it. Some time, later on, when you know my story, you will not wonder that I am so sadly in earnest. The cruelty of one man has overshadowed my life; there are many who have been wronged as much as I have been.”
Then she became her own cold self again, half seeming to repent of the confidence she had placed in him. He understood, when those moods came over her, that it was useless to remain or try to win her further confidence.
The day came when, walking by her side through the large gardens of the Dower House, he told her the story of his murdered love. She was strangely interested.