Terry was really pleased at that. He had thought as much, inwardly; but he pushed the question. “Why should you be afraid? We are gentlemen.”
She smiled that little smile again, and asked: “Are ‘gentlemen’ always safe?”
“You surely do not think that any of us,” he said it with a good deal of emphasis on the “us,” “would hurt your young girls?”
“Oh no,” she said quickly, in real surprise. “The danger is quite the other way. They might hurt you. If, by any accident, you did harm any one of us, you would have to face a million mothers.”
He looked so amazed and outraged that Jeff and I laughed outright, but she went on gently.
“I do not think you quite understand yet. You are but men, three men, in a country where the whole population are mothers—or are going to be. Motherhood means to us something which I cannot yet discover in any of the countries of which you tell us. You have spoken”—she turned to Jeff, “of Human Brotherhood as a great idea among you, but even that I judge is far from a practical expression?”
Jeff nodded rather sadly. “Very far—” he said.
“Here we have Human Motherhood—in full working use,” she went on. “Nothing else except the literal sisterhood of our origin, and the far higher and deeper union of our social growth.
“The children in this country are the one center and focus of all our thoughts. Every step of our advance is always considered in its effect on them—on the race. You see, we are Mothers,” she repeated, as if in that she had said it all.
“I don’t see how that fact—which is shared by all women—constitutes any risk to us,” Terry persisted. “You mean they would defend their children from attack. Of course. Any mothers would. But we are not savages, my dear lady; we are not going to hurt any mother’s child.”